Time Alone

Have you been tracking the financial news? Yes Bank has been very much in the news for all the wrong reasons, giving ride to frustrated customers queuing up to withdraw their allowed fifty thousand rupees per day and waiting for the world to go right again when all is again Yes with the bank after the reserve bank rescues it with a new partner that really can take care of it. In the meantime, the bank is losing close to 90% of it's value. 

Financial relationships are relationships too. We get quite invested in the institutions that we go through for our financial needs. It isn't just about the interest rate we get or the interest we get from the bankers, most of us don't change bankers even if we know there are better banks around that offer maybe a percentage or two better interest. Even now, there are banks that woo clients with great offers, asking why we are with a four percenter when we could have six percent. Then there are banks which actually offer a lot more than just a couple of percentages more, it can even be as high as four percentage points more. 

In reality, sometimes we actually take the lesser percentage because it seems like the higher percentages are a bit too suspicious. It is like in high school dramas on Amazon prime or Netflix where the hottest people in campus don't necessarily get the Star - often it is the stereotype that the best looking people are also the meanest or not the smartest or something else that is taking away from their attractiveness as a long term prospect. It is like really we are programmed to avoid the better looking of things because we expect they will be less than great when we get to know them.

Perhaps it is from evolution and how as people living in caves centuries ago, we needed to run away from the colourful and the brilliant because they were usually quite literally poisonous or threatening. We learn to admire things from far but learn to stay far away from them. We might even  copy them to look dangerous ourselves but we stay cautious of the attractive rosary pea and the brilliantly colored butterflies

Here in the times of big banks teetering, there are likely hundreds of customers of the bank who have been sticking with the bank anyway. So many of us don't just up and leave for a better looking prospect. We hang around, quite sure that we aren't going to get dumped. We are loyal to our banks, even when things look really scary. We trust at some level that the big bosses in the government will not let it really break down. We persevere.

Thing is, are we really as loyal to the people in our lives as we are to the banks? Or, do we need that big boss guarantee?  Life and love are tough. When even banks need a bail out, is love any different? If our love suffers, can we look for someone who might help?
As written for The New Indian Express