5 Years a Banker – The Story of a misfit who flourished

Sometimes in life, it just happens. There are no explanations, not even a warning signal. About 5 years ago, a slightly nervous yet excited young man stared at the “Allahabad Bank – Vellore Branch” board for a full minute before walking into the manager’s cabin. It was his first day at work as a probationary officer. He was not related in any way to the field to have chosen it as a career path (Expect that his dad was a banker), having graduated it Bioinformatics and worked in a corporate giant like Wipro (albeit for a few months). Yet somehow it all just clicked for no reason at all. This is not just my story but could be related to any of the hundreds and thousands of youngsters who join this grand old industry.

Part of the reason why I joined a mid-tier bank like mine despite having offers from two other highly ranked banks is what I thought would be a moderately good working culture. And boy was I right! Especially with the kind of people I got to work with and more specifically my fellow officers. I have never called myself as a complete banker, probably never will. And a lot of my fellow mates have been more surprised than the people who recruited me on why I am in this field. It’s true that I am bit of a misfit in this industry not only because of my background but also because of my interests that could vary from writing to making a movie (all of which my job allowed me to do). But two things made me stay put and enjoy my work. One is that I have always done what my heart told me to and second is undoubtedly my fellow officers. You see, it can be mildly frustrating (to put it mildly) to answer basic doubts from a fellow officer who has been here for more than 3 years. But that’s what I did. God knows how frustrating it can be. But they all had a smile on their face and a willingness to help me no matter what. That’s not easy to find and I am incredibly lucky that way. And it’s not every day that you sit down with your managers at the end of a hard day’s work and talk travel, literature and exchange books. That’s dream if you ask me.

It frustrates me when sometimes people look down of a bank job but it also amuses me on how less people know how good it can be. Yes, there is pressure and yes there is work and lots of it and every branch is always under staffed. But the greatest thing that being a banker had done to me is that I never had a phobia of Mondays. It just doesn’t make any sense to me when I see people post about Mondays because there had not been a single time where I thought “Oh My God! It’s a Monday!” The fact that I am writing this on a Monday evening says a lot. There is a lot of work but it’s never monotonous. There is pressure but there is also satisfaction. The sense of achievement that you get when you make some stranger’s life better is unparalleled. This is say despite working exclusively as an urban banker. It multiplies exponentially if you are a rural banker. This is a field where its personnel actually make a difference to the society. It’s not a “Facebook will pay 1 dollar for every like” world. This is the real deal and it’s tremendously satisfying to be an agent of actual change.

It just felt right to write this because my friends in banking proved me wrong you know. I never thought I will find these many good folks in my line of work given that I work in an office that has 10 people. There is great camaraderie and respect. There is hardly any rivalry even when appearing for promotions together and a genuine sense of happiness when a fellow officer is promoted and a responsibility to get everyone up to the next level. I mean, name one corporate where you can find mates like this. I may not end up retiring as a banker but whatever time that I spend here will most definitely be some of the most special years of my life and I have my mates to thank for. 

The Revenant – Welcome to Hell, on Paradise

Very few movies provide its audience one particular experience that can only be given by a book, getting lost into it. While other movies let us watch the story unfold, these select few let us be part of it. We struggled to differentiate reality and a dream state (Inception), we felt grateful to have touched the soil after passing enormous hardships to get back to ground from outer space (Gravity). Likewise, we have now felt pain, hunger, anger and solitude in a barren tundra and know what it is like to be left to die alone. There have been a lot of Man Vs Nature movies before but none have left us this beaten and bruised as Alejandro Innaritu’s exceptionally shot, The Revenant.

Legendary Rocky Mountain Frontiersmen Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is injured in a vicious bear attack while guiding a fur trapping expedition in the northern Missouri river. Left for dead by members of his hunting team, he needs to find extraordinary skills of survival to stay alive and extract revenge on John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) who had done him great wrong.

In what is essentially a simple tale of revenge, Alejandro Innaritu manages to create an unforgiving masterpiece of grit, determination and survival so raw that you can even smell the breath of the characters. The intimacy of the work is such that you wonder if what’s giving you the chills, is the air conditioning of the movie hall or the landscape depicted in the movie come to life. It is minute-after-minute of arrow stricken men, butchered animals and ghastly moments that are downright visceral and can leave you with a disturbed gut but it is also of visual brilliance and great acting. While you could literally feel the drooping saliva of the grizzly, you can also taste the water when Glass sticks his tongue out to drink water from the falling sleet.

Eddie Redmayne’s reaction when Julianne Moore declared the winner of best actor at this year’s Academy awards perhaps encapsulates just how much the World wanted to see Leonardo DiCaprio lift the Oscar statuette. Some might question the choice given that there were two other power packed performances last year from Bryan Cranston (Trumbo) and Redmayne himself (The Danish Girl) but perhaps its poetic justice and a culmination of all his previous nominations that tipped the favour towards DiCaprio and now the World has one less thing to worry about. The performance itself resonated with his Oscar misgivings: Beaten, Bruised and left in the cold, he eventually crawls and fights his way to get his revenge.

Mark Rylance’s phenomenal work as the captive US spy in Bridge of Spies was the only thing that stood between Tom Hardy and a first academy award as he spits venom in his role as John Fitzgerald who is as cold and unforgiving as the landscape of the movie itself. Tasked with a role that is more challenging than DiCaprio’s, Hardy captivates the audience with so much of dark side that you are forgiven to have missed the humanity in it. How much he communicates through those powerful eyes! The premise of his character is not new to him specially after The Dark Knight Rises, Warrior and Legend but he brings something fresh to it every time he laces up his boots as a Villain. This complex, power packed performer will be one of the best performers of this era.

Alejandro Innaritu’s vision is a testament on how to convert what in essence an art house making into a commercial blockbuster. The Revenant is grand, brilliant and spell binding but ultimately exhausting. In an attempt to elevate the movie from a simple revenge tale Innaritu poses a lot of questions from race to climate change to humanity to a brutal system that helped build a nation. But he leaves no attempt to answer them but simply lets his characters be victims of all these problems. In doing so he has left a sense of incompleteness which is akin to Glass’ final moments in the movie, a long stare into the emptiness. Is that the point of it all?

It is not customary to finish a review with a take on a movie’s cinematographer. But Emmanuel Lubezki’s work is so captivating that you really wonder what this feature would be without this triple Oscar winner and multiple time nominee. His work in the Revenant is not just visual but also the way he lets the audience feel the movie or in his own words, immersive. Shot exclusively in natural light which is limited in the terrain where they shot the movie (Canada and Argentina), Lubezki brings us every sunrise, frozen plants, shooting stars, frozen waterfalls, every wound in Glass’ body and the fear in the men’s eyes. What could be equally or more challenging than shooting landscapes is capturing human emotions in its micro detail. So, the idea a movie like this involves the camera to be more emotional than mechanical and that is exactly what Lubezki achieved. Shooting for this movie was termed hellacious by the cast filled with unnatural hardships but the end product is heaven. The movie itself is a grand statement of what happens when the director and cinematographer works perfectly in sync with each other.

While the Revenant falters on content and grace, it more than makes it up with its unique style of moviemaking that’s brutal and awkward to watch but ultimately manages to floor you with knock out performances and out of the world cinematography.