Fruits of Our Labour

From my early banking days, a nostalgic recollection of a time when our greatest struggle wasn’t with balance sheets, but with breakfast.

In the early nineties, on getting promoted, a batch of twenty-five of us from Karnataka were deputed to Pune for a three-month training. We were joined there by another thirty-five participants from Chandigarh. Sixty of us in all, young, ambitious, and brimming with enthusiasm, descended upon the training centre at Koregaon Park, barely a stone’s throw from the then-famous Rajneesh Ashram.

The centre was residential, which meant we ate, slept, studied, and squabbled within the same four walls. Our days followed a disciplined timetable: classes began at 9.30 a.m., with four sessions of an hour and a half each, two before lunch, two after. Breakfast ran from 8.00 to 9.15, lunch from 1.00 to 2.00, snacks at 5.30, and dinner between 8.00 and 9.00. Recreation facilities were aplenty,  Table Tennis, Carrom, Chess, and Badminton,  but the most fascinating pastime for many of us was an evening stroll through the neighbourhood cafés, frequented by the semi-clad foreign followers of Osho, sipping coffee and philosophising about life.

Our hostel rooms were two or three-bedded, and the day began with coffee or tea at 6.30 a.m., accompanied by biscuits. Some of us would start with indoor games, others with a walk past the Ashram, mostly to confirm that foreigners indeed had no concept of full-sleeved clothing. A bath and breakfast followed before we scrambled into class.

Within a week, the canteen’s limitations became clear. If all sixty of us landed there fifteen minutes before closing time, chaos reigned. So, being the disciplined bankers in the making that we were, we “chalked out” our own staggered breakfast timings. Of course, that noble plan lasted exactly one day. The indoor games stretched a little longer, the bath took a little more time, and soon everyone was back to the 9:00 a.m. rush.

There were, however, a few seniors, members of what we fondly called the ideal minority, who lived in a parallel world. They rose early, read newspapers, performed their morning puja before a deity they’d brought from home, and still reached breakfast sharp at eight. Their calm composure only made the rest of us feel more disorganised.

Breakfast itself was a daily adventure. The menu was fixed, and rules stricter than a bank audit, one omelette per person, no seconds. Naturally, the Pure  vegetarians became prized allies, as the non-vegetarians pleaded with them to “please get your omelette and pass it on.” Every other day, the canteen served a dish with sabudana, which the Maharashtrians considered a delicacy, but many of us from the South found suspiciously gluey. Fruits were a rare sight, reserved for special occasions, unlike in some other training centres where there was a rotation of fruits, sweets, or ice cream as dessert.

The real problem, though, was punctuality. With so many of us cutting it fine for breakfast, at least ten people were perpetually late to class. The faculty, understandably, took this as a collective failure of discipline. Those of us who were on time bristled at being lectured for the sins of the latecomers. The poor faculty member, caught between sympathy and irritation, ended up scolding the whole class, creating unity, at least in collective indignation.

After a month of this, patience began to wear thin. We felt the food was substandard, the restrictions unfair, and the lack of dessert an unpardonable offence. Despite a few polite complaints, nothing changed. Instead, the management retaliated in kind, by asking us to be in the canteen at 8:00 a.m. sharp. That, we felt, was missing the point entirely! We were complaining about the food, not the clock.

A few of our self-appointed leaders decided enough was enough. If verbal protests failed, a written one would succeed. Thus began the Great Representation. A letter was drafted, grievances elaborately listed, and signatures collected, most voluntarily, a few under mild peer pressure. The handful of wiser souls advised restraint, preferring endurance over rebellion. But their voices were drowned in the righteous roar of youth demanding justice (and dessert).

The representation was sent far and wide, to the Training Centre head, to higher officials, and even to the Officers’ Association. Soon after, there were minor improvements in food quality. But discipline, too, was enforced with fresh zeal. The irony wasn’t lost on us, we had gained slightly better meals but lost the luxury of leisurely mornings.

When the training concluded and we returned to our respective branches, we discovered that our little “revolt” had become the talk of the banking grapevine. Senior colleagues asked about “the Pune Petition,” often with an amused smile. One Officers’ Association leader cornered me and said, “Weren’t your demands a bit unreasonable?”

“Unreasonable? Not at all!” I protested. “We were only asking for what other centres were providing, better food, a few fruits, maybe some dessert.”

He smiled, pulled out a copy of our representation, and pointed to one particular sentence:

> “Good quality fruits in sufficient quantity were not being provided after breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

He looked at me, half amused, half baffled.

“Do you seriously believe good quality fruits in sufficient quantity after every meal are provided anywhere?” he asked. “You were sent there to learn banking, not fruit distribution!”

That was my moment of enlightenment. Our innocent phrasing had turned a reasonable request into an extravagant demand. What we meant as a plea for an occasional fruit bowl had read like a royal charter.

Looking back now, I can’t help but laugh at our youthful earnestness. The training, after all, wasn’t just about deposit mobilisation and lending, or Systems, it was about patience, perspective, and learning when to pick your battles.

We didn’t get our fruits after every meal. But, in hindsight, we did get something far better, The Fruits of our Labour: lessons in humility, humour, and the fine art of not taking ourselves too seriously.