Show me the money! *

The craziest thing in the world is where , you give your money to someone to hold and then you pay him money everytime you want to take some of your money back from him.

There must be an ancient mallu proverb that wraps up the situation aptly but I would rather go with : What the fuck!

Welcome to the world of banking.

I had opened up an account with Mashreq bank in their easy saving scheme, which is a lot like tying up your saving in a sack and then dropping it into a well. There is no ATM cards, or cheque books. So the only way you can get at your money is by climbing down the well. In short, I will have to go to the bank and withdraw it personaly. Being a lazy bum, with a dire requirement to save, I decided that this is a great option.

So each time I wanted to dip into my honey pot, I had to go to the bank, write a slip and have the teller do a third degree on me to check my identity ( as if god would dare to make someone else in my image) , ending with some money in my hand.

It worked for me.

Thats untill a few days back.

I wanted to go skinny dipping in my honey pot again and was confronted with a sign in front of the cute teller that said the bank will be charging aed 100 for every withdrawal that is less than aed 9000.

This is to supposedly encourage people to withdraw using their atm cards.

Did I tell you that my account scheme does not provide me with an atm card? I did , didnt I? Now its like paying the ferry man after you die. Raw deal.

Tell you the truth I was amused. I first thanked the universe for finally giving me something to rant about, then I called forth the manager.

So, if I want to withdraw AED 100 from my savings, do I give the bank 100 dirhams and they give me 100 dirhams, or do they take my 100 dirhams and then thank me, leaving me empty handed and puzzled?

I dont know.

Anyways, to cut a long story short, I withdrew my entire savings. I think its wiser and probably safer to just keep it under my pillow.

Truth is I dont know much about the world of banking. I also think not many people in banking have any clue what the whole shit is about. I once spoke to my brother and he told me that money is no longer valued against a country's gold reserves. Infact the value of money today is based on what some guy in some bank decides it to be.

I dont understand money. As long as it can buy things Iam kind of okay with it. But each time I look at it, I cant help but wonder that , fuck, its just paper. All this fuss for something which actually will have no relevance if found by some alien archeologist 50 millions years hence.

I think, Zerco, these primates used to eat this. Thats why they have so much of it and every fossil we unearthed has this on them. This was their food.They survived on paper, which they made , perhaps more palatable by putting designs on them. Perhaps these design has some religious significance. The face of the primate on these papers, must be their way of imbibing the soul of their leaders each time they ate it. The numbers on it must signify their calorie content.

Hmmm, Chirco, I believe you have a point. Lets call these species, Paperophages. The paper eaters


Come to think of it, they wont be that far from the truth.


* The title is in honour of Tom Cruise who is currently in my city doing some Mission Impossible sequel. He should have just tried getting home every evening on Sheik Zayed Road.