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This photo of an old man crying after missing his spot at the State Bank of India, New Colony branch, in Gurgaon, went viral on Twitter. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)
Seventy-eight-year-old Nand Lal’s tears outside a State Bank of India branch in Gurgaon resonated with thousands of Indians who have spent hours trying to withdraw or deposit money after the government’s move to recall high-value banknotes.
Lal had missed his spot in the line waiting at the bank, and the loss was more than he could handle. A photograph of him breaking down, which Hindustan Times published on Wednesday and was widely shared on social media, has become the symbol of the country’s hardship in the aftermath of the scrapping of 1,000 and 500 rupee notes.
A retired army man who served on the India-Pakistan border along Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, Lal has come to dread withdrawing money from the bank. After queuing up outside the bank for three days, Lal made repeated requests with folded hands to be allowed to jump the line to withdraw the much-needed money.
Read | Demonetisation woes: HT’s photo of old man crying in a bank touches a raw nerve
Nand Lal, a resident of Bhim Nagar, Gurgaon, is a retired armyman who served on the border along Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. He now lives in a dingy 10x10 ft room in sector 6, Gurgaon. (Parveen Kumar/HT PHoto)
“Humko apna paisa kyon nahi dete. Pehle tayyari kyon nahi ki...(Why aren’t they giving us our own money? Why did they not prepare for this earlier),” Lal said, who needed the money to pay for utilities and services.
“I had to pay my maid, the grocer and the milkman. I had received Rs 8,000 pension in my account in first week of December.”
Apart from paying for two square meals a day and electricity, Lal needs Rs 3,000 a month to pay for room rent.
On finally getting his turn, he withdrew Rs 10,000 from the bank. Lal, who uses a walking stick for support, hopes the queues get shorter by the time he needs to go back for more.
“Jab dil hi toot gaya, hum je eke kya kare (When the heart is broken, how would I live),” he said, quoting a Bollywood song.
Until about a decade ago, the retired armyman lived contently in his home with his adopted daughter to care for him. She got married, and he had to move to a dingy rented room just a few blocks away from his home.
“My daughter sold the house after she got married some 15 years ago. Now I live here alone,” Lal said, pointing to his living space on the ground floor of a three-storeyed house at Bhim Nagar in sector 6, Gurgaon.
Nand Lal sits outside his rented accommodation in sector 6, Gurgaon. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)
Inside the dimly lit 10x10 ft room, a single bed, a trunk, a plastic chair, a bucket, an ashtray, water bottles and two portraits of Lord Shiva and Lord Ganesh give the septuagenarian company. He spends his day between a tea shop close by and his room.
Lal’s neighbours know him as the old army veteran who shifted to Gurgaon from Pakistan during partition. His wife, they said, died three decades ago after which he adopted a daughter, who now lives with her husband in Faridabad. The only contact the two have is when she sends him some money in the bank, they added.
“She sends him Rs 7-8,000 every month. We haven’t seen her visiting him in the past,” said Dinanath Ahuja, a retired mechanic and Lal’s neighbour who accompanied him to the bank.
“He borrowed Rs 100 to pay to the rickshaw puller who ferried him up to the bank for the three consecutive days. Finally the bank officials considered his condition,” Ahuja said.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/gurga...crunch-woes/story-lz6t3xneMMJlF1rlnzhRlK.html
