The Story Of Banking In India

FOR YOU AND I, Chinese cuisine, Punjabi food and Gujarati thali are options to choose from when deciding on a weekend meal.

- Madan Sabnavis

But if you are in the banking system, especially public sector banks (PSBs), these terms mean different things. Speed money to make things move in your favour would involve giving large amounts, which is Chinese, consumer durable goods in case of Punjabi and plain cash for the thali. It is these kinds of tales narrated by Tamal Bandyopadhyay which make his book titled From Lehman to Demonetization: A Decade of Disruptions, Reforms and Misadventures a cracker to read. Bandyopadhyay, a regular columnist and consulting editor with a business daily puts together a collection of his articles written in a contextual frame.

Having also read books by Raghuram Rajan, Bimal Jalan and Rakesh Mohan who have used published pieces or speeches, the reviewer was sceptical of this book but was in for a big surprise. Usually when book authors use previously published pieces and compile them in a book, the author(s) runs the risk of being stale and outdated. However, this one is different because the issues are still contemporary; and more importantly Bandyopadhyay is a great story teller.

For instance, the articles have been cherry picked and classified under different heads. The Lehman articles are more descriptive and will appeal to the first-time reader who would like to know what the crisis was all about. There is another section on MFIs (microfinance institutions), which narrates their tale of woe after the crisis in Andhra Pradesh.