The hilarious phone calling offering Personal Loans!!
By: Ghulam Mohammed Ansari
Caller: “Hello! Sir, am I talking to Gul Muhammad Ansari?
No, my name is Ghulam Mohammad Ansari.
Caller:Yes Sir, Ghulam Muhammad Ansari. Sir, this phone is regarding personal loan.
Okay fine
Caller:Sir, our bank wants to give you a loan at…%.
Ma’am,I have already taken loan in another bank. That’s why I don’t need a loan right now.
Caller:Sir, you can merge that loan in our bank and this will also reduce your rate of interest.
Ma’am, all ready, my loan has been merged, I don’t need a loan anymore.
Caller:Sir, your monthly loan portfolio is so good that our bank wants to give you maximum loan.
That’s right ma’am, the question is what will I take home if I pay off the loan with my full salary? Will I take home a rupee? I have to run the house too ma’am.
Caller:Okay! Sir, if anyone else is in contact with you, please give them my reference.
Okay ma’am.
Caller:Sir, thank you very much for talking to us.
Thank you.
The situation is that the on an average people, including me, are receiving three to four such calls daily- it is sickening. The whole trend started when some high influential people robbed banks by never paying the debt and even running away from the country. So, the bankers have started looking towards the poor employees like us and feel that the loan facilities should be availed anyhow.
There was a time when government employees also had a lot of trouble in getting personal loans approved from banks. But since this tragedy happened and the big businessmen of the country were proved to be defaulters, the banks started looking at us with tempting eyes. The situation is that from the small banks to the big and famous ones, calls are coming daily.
In fact taking a personal loan is also a hassle as your bio-data is shared with all the banks and they track your records and contact you often calling you several times in a day and making your life miserable.
There was a time when I applied for a loan from a bank for the first time and after all the process, the‘big bank’ of the country refused to give the loan saying that “Your Net Salary is not 15 thousand rupees”. Actually, only twelve rupees were short of fifteen thousand rupees, so I could not get a personal loan.
Then after 6th and 7th pay commission the salaries increased and in 2015 I felt that I might need more money for my daughter’s marriage. So I contacted a major bank in the country to arrange for it. But, after all the investigations, the bank refused saying that- “Your area is blacklisted from our bank’s point of view, so we can’t lend to you.”
I finally thought to contact the bank where from my monthly salary wasbeing dispersed. I informed the bank about all the episodes with other banks and told them that they could consider my government job as my qualified for the loan. The banker understood this and sanctioned the loan in three days.
From that day onwards, the phones of the banks started coming. The interesting thing is that the same bank which had refused to give the loan came forward and started giving me a loan and offered to merge all the other loans into itself and that too at a minimum interest.
Every day and every time, the phone calls have become annoying problem for a common man. Even when you are in a meeting, in classroom, driving, in the toilet, at someone’s wedding, attending a funeral, the phone starts ringing!
There is no criteria for callers regarding personal loans or housing loans. They follow the list that comes to them from mutual settings. At the same time, if someone’s number is found through any means, they make a call.
A few years ago, there was an incident in the newspapers that the then Rashtrapati of the country Mr.Pranab Mukherjee also received a call from a bank regarding a loan! Just think, why would the President of a country need a personal loan or a housing loan?Besides, how did the phone number of such a big personality reach the brokers of these banks?
Often their phones come down like an uninvited guest. Sometimes they ask if we can talk to you and yes if you say I’m busy right now, they would say that they will call you later- and they mean it!
Any kind of loan is like a swamp from which a person can hardly get out and most of them drown. Or else some scoundrels but reliable type of people run away by whitewashing the banks. In other words, it is also a river of love and one has to drown in it by borrowing from the banks. Coming out with such debts is like cutting mountains and pouring out rivers of milk.
The fact is that when a phone starts ringing and if the number is not saved, we automatically assume that it must be a banker’s phone, and often it turns out to be true!
The writer is Assistant Editor of ‘Asasa’ an Urdu Quarterly published from Ahmedabad. He is also a member of Screen Writers Association, Mumbai. [email protected]
Kashmir Images is an English language daily newspaper published from Srinagar (J&K), India. The newspaper is one of the largest circulated English dailies of Kashmir and its hard copies reach every nook and corner of Kashmir Valley besides Jammu and Ladakh region.
