Weekends once meant time for fun and leisure or an opportunity to take care of household chores, but not any more.
Thanks to demonetisation, the weekends are now strictly reserved for standing in line at ATMs and banks.
“All that I have been doing on weekends since November 8 is be outside the bank or any of the ATMs around my house. Standing in queues and talking to others in line is all that I have done over the past three weekends. My wife does the same on weekdays. We work the entire week and stand in queue on weekend. The weekend fun is missing,” says Tushar Gupta, a resident of north Delhi.
Waiting game
Much like Mr. Gupta, Heena Rana, an artist, has a similar story to tell. Waiting outside an ATM near Kamla Nagar she says: “I used to get up late on weekends but now I wake up early to be able to withdraw some cash. When I came here on Friday night, the shutters of the ATM were down and there were many already waiting. So I knew I had to be here on Saturday morning.”
Weekends have taken on a new meaning for students too. “The other day, I had gone to college to take an exam when I heard that the college ATM is dispensing cash. I hurried to the ATM after I finished writing my paper, but so did about hundred other students and in that rush, I fell and ended up hurting my knee. But that could not stop me. Thankfully, I was the second in queue and was successful in taking out money despite the minor injury,” says Leonard Pator, a student of Hindu College, Delhi University.
Rojaskiya Ranjeet, a student of Kamala Nehru College, however managed to save her weekend.
Planning ahead
“My room-mates and I had been making daily visits to two or three ATMs located near our flat but were either too early or too late to get there, or were thwarted by the long queues. Then, on Friday night, we went to an ATM a little far off. We hardly waited for fifteen minutes and took out the cash thanks to the fact that there was a separate queue for women and one woman was being let in after about every five men.”
“I am waiting for all of this to get back to normal. Right now, this feeling of rushing to the ATMs, needing cash etc., is keeping me tensed,” says Mr. Gupta.
