Life was full of
assignments, projects, presentations, surprise quizzes and I was eagerly
waiting for some good news to have a short retreat from grinding life at IIM
Kashipur. One fine day, moment to rejoice came in the form of internship offer
from my dream organisation “The Reserve Bank of India”. Congratulations all around with friends
bashing me and parents were wishing all the best. But exhilaration subsided to
half the levels as I was asked to report at the RBI Kanpur office rather than
in Mumbai office. Being a south Indian, my Hindi speaking skills were very bad
(better to say worst) and I had to spend 2 months in the core Hindi speaking
belt of the country. However, joy of getting an offer from RBI allayed all the
fears and scepticism.
After taking a
week long refreshing break at home, I started on a 26 hour journey to Kanpur. I
had to stay at my friend’s house for first two days as there was a bit of delay
in allocation of quarter. First day of internship was an induction program
where I was introduced to Regional Director, my mentor and some other officers,
whom I had to work with. I was very excited after the first meeting with my
mentor as he was very inspirational and work oriented. I always looked forward
to interact with him. Other interns from IIM Lucknow, IIT Kanpur, IT-BHU and
other colleges also joined soon and we slowly started moving together. Interns
were given 2-bed room flats in RBI officers’ quarters which are located in a
plush area in Kanpur. Adding to the comfortable stay, quarters were full of
activity with children enjoying summer vacation in the calm and undisturbed
surroundings often engaging us in cricket and badminton.
I was part of a
team working on a live project to improve efficiency in government collection
and payment systems. I had to conduct interviews of various stakeholders
involved in the process. One of the interns from IIM Lucknow was also working
on the same project. I enjoyed working with him and we shared views on various
issues ranging from Currency system in India to Indian GDP. I got great amount
of exposure in RBI as I participated in some central level discussions on
monetary reviews, gold imports, currency fluctuations which included deputy
governors of RBI and some other meetings which included heads of State
Government departments and national banks to discuss progress on financial
inclusion and issues with electronic funds. I got a clear idea of how regulator
thinks and should think as decisions taken at regulatory level touch all lives.
Apart from the
work, three things that I liked most were library, people and food. RBI’s
library is a book lover’s paradise with books ranging from Indian culture to
Indian currency in abundance. Employees (with average age of more than 50) were
extremely proficient in banking knowledge and always guided us in our project.
Hindi was never a problem in office as everyone could communicate in English
and I also learnt a bit of Hindi (seriously not an exaggeration). I felt that
employees in RBI feel proud of their work and organisation which was nowhere
evident in software sector. Food in RBI was simply superb with around 12
different types of curries serving all palettes at the cheapest possible cost
and lunch time was most awaited by one and all in RBI. Apart from these, never
ending chats among interns at quarters, daily visit to rave-3 mall, a movie a
week, outings to Varanasi, Allahabad, Lucknow, Agra and Mathura made my sojourn in Kanpur
the most memorable.
