Acknowledgment due

A friend once explained to me why Diwali made her anxious every year. Her husband worked for the government, and there was bound to be the usual traffic of messenger boys heading for their door, bearing gift-wrapped boxes. Perhaps she was more cons- cientious than most. But apparently she stayed at home to open the box before the messenger, and check that the contents were innocuous ? dry fruit for example, not a gold bar or anything else that would constitute a bribe rather than a gift. To me this was news from another planet. No one has ever thought it worthwhile to bribe me; and in any case the givers of Diwali gifts do not seem to be sure of my address.

But my consolation prize was that I have never had to ?security-check? anything that came to my house by way of mail or messenger. Sadly, I seem to get only junk mail and bills via the postman these days. Bills, unfortunately, do have to be paid; but junk mail is, well, junk.

Like many of my more stout-hearted friends, I have become immune to the temptation of opening junk mail, no matter how loud or seductive the message on the envelope. From invitations to be in a gilt-edged edition of the ?International Who?s Who of Women Achievers? (just a matter of 115 dollars to be paid to the publishers in Small-town, America), to a no-expense weekend in a ?family fun country resort? in Gurgaon (only a non-alcoholic welcome drink being free), I have resisted promotional post. Considering how easily I gave up fame as a woman achiever and a restful weekend in the Gurgaon countryside, resisting offers from assorted banks to give me cards, loans, smart-this and smart-that was, as they say in both America and Gurgaon, chickenfeed. I took to making paper planes of these offers, and most of them flew gracefully into the wastepaper basket. My aim was getting better and better.

But these innocent pastimes ? and my sense of security about mail and messenger ? now belong to the past. I have recently discovered that I had better open every bit of junk mail and check ? in cautious sarkari style ? what is in there.

It all began with some official-looking post from Citibank. I know what a bill looks like; this looked horribly like a bill; so I opened it. It was, indeed, a statement of accounts for a credit card, a statement that asked for ?immediate? payment. The only trouble was that I did not have such a card. This is, perhaps, not so momentous for the kind of person who routinely gets a gold bar as a Diwali gift. But for someone who pays her bills, does her work, and flies paper planes in between, a bill for a non-existent card is what I can only call a Major Middle Class Trauma. I looked at the statement for a telephone number I could dial. I prepared an eloquent little speech, to say boldly, without mincing matters: Call me deprived if you like, but I don?t have a Citibank account, leave alone a credit card, golden or otherwise. And call me depraved if you like, but I don?t feel particularly deprived either.

Once I discovered the telephone number belonged to a call centre (in Gurgaon, in fact, probably next door to the fun-filled countryside), I decided it was unfair to subject some young thing in the call centre to my indignation. Instead I asked her, humbly, why I had been sent a bill for a card I didn?t possess, and had never possessed to the best of my knowledge.

Humility is a useful thing. Young she may be, but she knew all about it. I had been sent an ?activated? card. If I didn?t want it, why hadn?t I ?deactivated? it? I suddenly had a vision of my wastepaper basket. But how could I tell a disembodied voice that I must have thrown the unsolicited card, activated like a little time bomb, in one of my daily sessions of junking junk mail? So I was reduced to further unaccustomed humility. Could she please deactivate it for me since she knew all about the card I had never seen? She asked me for my name, address and birth date. I passed the first two tests. The third I failed ? perhaps someone more imaginative than my parents had fed the computer with 1974, or even 1980, as the year of my birth.

She suggested another way to deactivation. I could email the Customer Service Centre. I wrote the email immediately, Customer Services being the lucky recipient of all the eloquence pent up in me. Two days later, I got a one-sentence acknowledgment on email, asking me, in polite bankese, to hold on because my query required some more time to be answered. I held on; after all, I had asked a very difficult question, hadn?t I? A few days later, I got another email, suggesting I write to an address in Chennai asking for my deactivation. Both emails were signed by Manager, Customer Care. The poor creature, despite being nameless, sent me ?warm regards?.

Mr Nameless of Customer Care even added a one-line postscript ? which said in effect that since the bank cares for its customers (both complaining and uncomplaining ones, it seemed to imply, and both customers and don?t-want-to-be customers), there was a link on the web where I could post my valuable feedback.

My next letter was a snail mail one. I wanted to send it by Registered, Acknowledgement Due. The elusive but caring ones of Customer Care knew better; they had sent me a post box address. This is what happens when you refuse a golden card: you are reduced to writing to Mr (or Ms) Nameless, care of a post box in Anna Salai. I sent it under certificate of posting, and waited in fear for what the Creature of the Post Box Number would say to pull me an inch deeper into a ?citi that never sleeps?. Several weeks later, I got what I must assume is the response ? no letter, of course, but another statement of accounts. Though a couple of entries with numbers like 2000 made me unhappy all over again, there were entries with plain zeros as well. I took heart. Though there is still a ?minimum amount due?, the payment due date box claims ?No PYMT REQD?. This gives me hope that the system is seriously considering expelling me.

Since then, I have discovered from friends that several have had similar visitations from the insomniac citi and some of their brothers-in-cards. My friends talk of scams and such, being given to anger. But I have more positive plans. I am going to ban wastepaper baskets in the house. Instead I am going to spend an hour every day, replying to every citi and bank to say thanks, but no thanks, please deactivate me immediately. I am also considering adding another qualification to my CV: Kafka expert. My suspicion is that if Kafka were around today, he would deactivate his castle immediately. And he would rename that work of his, simply, The Citi.