twitter stories

so it's pretty well known i deeply love and revel in the twitter format. one of the things i love most about it is how a tweet is a perfect little jewel, small and perfect by itself. but sometimes, once in a while, there is a story behind the story that's worth telling. so sometimes, with some tweets, i'll do that here. with no capital letters of course.

last night at 2 am, citibank and ICICI sharing a chai in IDBI. in bombay at night, the ATM security guards take over the economy.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckTanushri Shukla
dramaqueen82

milann, divya, and i took a late night drive around bandra, listening to the fantastic new verve album that just begs to be listened to in a car at night with a light rain and the windows down. preferably on carter road around 3 am when it's heavenly-ly empty of show-offy bikers and cops. the next morning, i was to find out whether my education loan had been sanctioned or not and, if so, how much. some new RBI policy had been recently instituted that had made things a tad uncertain, and the economy was on my mind. to top it all, my bank had been annoying me by briefly "losing" a bunch of my money in an old account that was supposed to be closed, and blaming "the bandra branch". as if the other branch is another bank altogether. argh. why can't they all just get along, i was wondering, clenched.

the lit up ATM pods at the end of carter road are like floating islands of light in the otherwise dark, empty city. and inside these pools of light sit night security guards, slumped over asleep in uncomfortable chairs or sipping chai, staring mad-eyed out at the city streets. it's a cold, lonely job and i often wonder what they think about, alone, night after night, like birds perched in glass cages, full of fluttering currency notes they are separated from by the flimsiest of plastic walls.

that night, perhaps it was the rain and the new chill in the air, because the guards wanted company, and all the banks were sitting together, two or three green-brown clothed men with chais and smiles, sharing an ATM vestibule. who cared what ICICI thought of Citibank or what IDBI's interest rate was. it was raining, they had light, and a chai. i smiled. the economy was in good hands tonight.

the next morning, i was told my loan had been approved. and i'm off to oxford in sepetember. thank you security guard chai-drinking men for the good energies i know you've been unconsciously spreading.

psst: this active twitter screenshot has been taken using robin sloan's awesome blackbird pie.