Leave no stone unturned

Another try at finding a story

 It was just another sweltering Monday morning as I wended my way through the swarm of people, rickshaws and two-wheelers outside Thane railway station. I popped into an ATM owned by a large bank that has consistently been stonewalling me whenever I have approached them for information. Of course, I wasn’t feeling vengeful as I entered the ATM. I just needed some cash.

The ATM machine dutifully swallowed up my ATM card and started making gurgling noises—which usually means that a cash dispensation is imminent. This particular time though the gurgling continued for what seemed like five minutes, at the end of which a “network error” message flashed on the screen.

“Bugger!!” I thought as I hurried to catch the 10:10 from Thane to CST. Then it struck me, “What if this bank’s ATMs all over the city are down?”.

In my defense, this might have been a shot in the dark but it was not as far-fetched as it sounds. A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine had produced a story which was carried on the front page. And the story had the same inglorious roots as my experience that morning--a friend had tipped him off about an ATM not working, he had followed up on that and it turned out there was some satellite error or some such big thing. And what really rankled was even I had been unable to withdraw cash that same day but hadn’t followed up on it. That front page story could have been mine.

That morning, in a departure from most Monday mornings, I actually had two story ideas in mindwhich I intended to work on. But I told myself, “greed is good” and the prospect of a front page story was alluring. So, here is what I did—I texted half the people I knew in Mumbai, my folks who were in Pune and a friend in Delhi (on the possibility that it was national, or at least a state-wide, problem) asking them to check if the  nearest XXX Bank ATM was working, if it wasn’t too much bother. I figured that out of all these people I had texted at least two would reply, which would be enough to string together a story if indeed there was something wrong while the rest would ignore it. I was in for a surprise.

Two worried aunts and my brother-in-law called me up asking if I was in trouble and needed some cash. Some friends asked me where I was and gave me directions to the nearest ATM (not much help because I was in a moving train at that time). One friend called up and told me that now I could withdraw cash from any bank’s ATM without being charged for it. I told him that I had written a story about the new ATM rule and since that was my only by-lined copy in weeks I wasn’t likely to forget the subject of that story. When I told him I was fishing for a new story he said, “Dude, ATMs conk out all the time. Where is the story there?” Touche.

Of course, it didn’t end there. Two friends had replied that the ATMs they had tried were out of order but no reports of a “network error”. On the off-chance that I was sitting on a big story, I tramped around Parel station hunting for a XXX bank ATM. After half an hour, I was perspiring profusely but still hadn’t found one so I took a cab to an ATM I knew existed. I went in, put card in, the machine gurgled and, much to my dismay, dispensed the Rs 100 that I had requested.

Fortunately, I had messaged only people I know well, who I could afford to have think that I am weird (or who anyway thought so). And I guess you have to follow up on these cold leads (some would call them stone-cold leads).

So, I went to office and started work on my two other ideas, one of which actually translated into a story. Revenge on XXX bank would have to wait for another day.