A Citizen's Vocabulary

State Bank Acquires A New Lexicon

I visited one of the CPCs in my Circle recently where I happened to overhear this conversation between the marketing and processing staff:

" This boy is not even able to provide us his residence proof and photo identity. How can we process his education loan application?"

"But he is an exceptionally talented student. And very honest too."

"Just find a way out. Let us try to help this poor boy."

"Yeah, here is a case where we have to go beyond our routine duty and make a positive contribution."

" We will get a lot of inner fruits to cherish if we help him out."

In another case, a lady assistant in a semi-urban branch told me that she used to lose her patience while dealing with old pensioners. After attending the citizenship orientation programme, she is able to see the inner fruits that she will get by serving them with compassion. As a result, she gets a daily quota of the joy of contribution.

Every group and class has its own peculiar vocabulary. The gangsters have their own vocabulary and the spiritual beings their own. Sports persons use a different lexicon and the film stars have their own. So is the case with computer professionals and the factory workers. To each his own jargon and lexicon.

The new dictionary of SBI nowadays is filled with meaningful words like Inner Fruits, Outer Fruits, Joy of Contribution, Positive Contribution, Total Compensation, Evolving Citizen, Contribution Space etc. People try to tell each other to come out of their "function" state and behave as a 'being". I have also heard people telling each other that such and such person was an Amar or Akbar or Antony all through. A Branch Manager was recently complimented by his staff with these words - "Madam, you have made a lot of value contribution to this branch after you joined here."

It is rather easy to crack passwords these days. They are usually kept as contribution or fulfillment or compensation.

And finally citizenship has touched our sense of humour also - " Sir, you were always an evolving citizen. Since the day you joined the Bank we knew that you are an Anthony. And still you are going strong. If you keep on going like this, one day you will surely become "amar" (immortal)."

Jagat Bisht, Indore

jagat.bisht@sbi.co.in