029 THE FRIEND

029 THE FRIEND

My friend cum colleague Ajay Kumar had a habit of forgetting things. Both of us were working in a multinational in Bengaluru. He used to forget things at work and I used to make fun of his forgetfulness.

One morning he came to the office and said that he wanted to deposit money in his PPF account. 

I said “very good, go ahead.”

“I am not able to find my passbook,” he replied.

“Go to the bank and they will make a new one.”

“But I do not remember my account number and it is not written anywhere else.”

“Go to the bank, they will help you out.”

“Can you come with me?”.

“Let us go.”

We went to the bank by his motorbike. On the way, he was struggling with traffic while I was thinking of another struggle at Bank.  we reached there in half an hour. There was a lot of rush at the cash counter but there was a lady clerk sitting idle away from the counters. We went and asked her. She asked us to speak to another desk. We went to that desk, he said go to the other desk and so on… 5th person in desk sent us to 1st desk.

She gave us a strange look and scolded us for being so careless. We agreed that we made a mistake and were in need of help. 

“do you remember the year you opened the account?” she asked.

“No, ma'am.” replied my friend.

She gave another strange look.

“Ma’am, there must be some way. It is hard earned money and we are in need.” I pleaded.

She pitied our condition and got a big and heavy register full of dust. She gave it to us and asked to sit in another chair and find out from the register. It was a register where entries used to be made for opening a new PF account. Date, name, account number and signature of all the PPF accounts opened in that bank were there in that register. It had entries for the last 7-8 years.

We started from page one and on the second page we found Ajay Kumar. We were so happy but only for a moment. Before he could note down his account number, we found another Ajay Kumar a few lines below. We turned the pages and found that there was one Ajay Kumar on almost every alternate page.

We looked at each other. I suggested matching the signature. My friend agreed without a thought. Signatures of all Ajay Kumars were not so different. After looking at a few signatures my friend said, “I forgot my signature.”

What?

“Yes, I don’t remember it now. I can’t differentiate”

I looked at him. His face was giving an indication that he was going to cry the next moment. I smiled and then laughed. He looked at me and smiled.

We took a break and sat on the waiting benches. After 5 mins I asked him to sign on a blank paper. We took the signed paper and then matched it with the signature in the register. After a lot of pages we found one signature matching exactly. 

We thanked the bank lady and were happy that we came out victorious.