The death of a banker

When targets are overwhelming, senior management and customers are both impatient, and there is constant fear, not every banker has the resilience to survive and thrive

- TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY

This is an apocryphal story. In the summer of 2009, at a pre-kindergarten school at Santa Barbara, California, the director asked the students to introduce themselves — a ritual to kick off the academic year. The students were children of doctors, lawyers, scientists, businessmen.

When a three-year-old girl sheepishly said, "My dad is a pole dancer", there was a pindrop silence. The director hugged the little kid, kissed her, and was all praise for her boldness, given the social stigma the profession carried.

Before leaving the class, the kid whispered into the director's ears: "Miss, I lied. My dad is a banker."

Post the 2008 Lehman crisis, banking was not a profession of pride in the US. In India, too, it seems to be becoming difficult, though for different reasons.

July 19 was Bank Nationalisation Day — the day 14 banks with 85 per cent of overall deposits were nationalised in 1969. Earlier this month, two days ahead of it, a 52-year-old chief manager of the Baramati branch of a large public sector bank (PSB) in Pune killed himself.

He had resigned on July 11, citing health concerns and unbearable workplace stress, and was serving the 90-day notice period. In his suicide note, he wrote that all bank officials were working to the best of their abilities and urged the management to take a more sympathetic view towards the staff.

Last year, another PSB's branch manager at Arakkonam, Tamil Nadu, hanged himself in his home on his birthday after dropping his wife to work. He, too, blamed work pressure and unbearable toxic culture.

In 2023, the manager of the Hindu Colony branch of another government-owned bank, died by suicide, jumping off from his ninth-storey flat. He left behind a suicide note, saying he was forced to end his life because of the managing director of a company who had taken a loan.

In the past 10 years, over 500 PSB officers have died by suicide.