My aunt lives in Sagarpuri in West Delhi. Saragpuri is an urban settlement, having migrant workers, day wage earners, labors, professionals, businessmen, farmers, traders, and itinerant mendicants as its residents. My aunt has a comfortably large dupleix and wonderful landlords. The added attraction is ofcourse the low rent. She pays 6000/- a month for two floors and some 8 rooms!!

For the last few months, each time I visited she would talk about getting a credit card and another car - this one for herself, as the old maruti 800 is used by my uncle for commuting to work.

The other day she went to a bank nera her house to open a new account and apply for a car loan though an existing account in my uncles name, from the same bank. Being a conscientious prospective client of a major private bank, she took some relevant documents with her, namely her PAN card and passport.

She promptly filled the form, attaching and stapling two passport size photographs, and photocopies of the documents certifying her name, age and address.

Unbeknownst to her the name on her PAN was different from the one on passport. She didn't realize that she uses a different surname now after marriage. The officer at the account opening desk refused to accept her application. She alleged that the information given by my aunt regarding her name was incorrect. And it was not entirely false!

My aunt requested the bank's executive to consider her application but to no avail. She ordered her to bring three documents where at least two should certify the change of name otherwise it would be difficult for my aunt to open an account. Fair enough! She could be anyone in possession of 'original' documents.

For the car loan the executive simply smiled and said that the bank cannot give her a loan under any circumstances as she happens to live in a high risk area.

passport and PAN was made when she was in Jaipur. She didn't know what to do, so next time when she went to the bank she took Virendra Singh, her landlord, along. Virendra Singh knew everyone in the bank. He was associated with the bank for last three years, in the capacity of a vehicle retriever. Whenever the bank has no other option but to forcefully retrieve a vehicle from a car loan defaulter, the bank use to rely on Virendra Singh. Virendra would not only promptly get the vehicle back but would be able to sell the car within three weeks of 'recovery' and repay the dues to the bank.

As far as vehicle financing division of the bank was concerned, Virendra was a very important person.

Two weeks later she got her credit card and notification to collect the papers for the car loan.

My aunt is attending driving classes these days. There are new curtains,Cd player, living room uphostry and mixer in the house - all paid through the new credit card!