@ ATM

The gentleman (or) gentlemen who fashioned the ATM must have been infatuated with the weighing machine (WM). One would not have ignored the presence of WM, as a passerby or as a user – in malls, bus terminus and of course in the platforms of railway stations.

I do not remember to have seen one in Airports as I am not a frequent air traveler. May be you have seen one. ATM's are everywhere.

These two machines have something in common. Blinking lights, whirring wheels, mouths to receive and deliver.

WM remains mute throughout the transaction where as the ATM toggles between mute and un-mute state.  WM delivers a stiff card board ticket; the ATM is content to issue a printed slip.

Both have this disturbing trend .WM stuns you with your weight (which you don’t want to look at) & a prediction (which you have to take with a pinch of salt).

On your lucky day it may even shower you with coins & prediction cards till stocks last! It makes one wonder whether the machine is trying to renounce all its worldly possessions to embrace sanyas. I hear what you are thinking – why the WM has been provided with only two slots.

Being a computer age gadget, the ATM is more sophisticated – to approach one; you must have a credit/debit card as like “entry on invitation only” fashion. It demands and gets a queue system to approach and state your business like Royalty giving an audience.

No such frills are attached to the good old WM. If you feel like it, you simply stand on its foot and it delivers. The only written instruction it displays is “insert coin when the wheel stops rotating”. Simple is it not!

The colored wheel and blinking lights is the only attractive feature. So to say a common man is left to fend for himself.

All said and done, the ATM is a class apart. It is housed in air-conditioned cubicle, has 24X7 security and can transact your business in more than one language.

It could live an ascetic life or share the space with fellow ATM's if the cubicle is spacious. Unlike the WM, it is periodically fed with stacks of currency notes and disburses eligible amount or a bonanza when in a benevolent mood.

Being highly educated, the ATM follows a routine to test your maneuvering skills. Like “Pavlov’s dog", it trains you to respond to a command displayed on the screen. The blinking lights instruct you to insert your card.

You do it with a shaking finger. From the options displayed, you nervously “touch” or “enter” the required information, beginning from PIN to short of your birthday and martial status!

Now, it is for the climax, in the form of a display in the monitor. It could be the first base “your transaction is being processed” Or it could be “unable to process your transaction” Easily one could imagine the state of your mind!

If you are lucky collect your cash and the slip. If unlucky then all you can do is to collect the slip sticking out like a papyrus tongue. You hear the whirring noise, from the digestive systems, in both the cases, increasing your heart beat, while you are eagerly looking at its other mouth – the delivery counter.

At the end, the machine finally breaks its silence. Speaks, as if taking pity on you, – “Thank you for using me”, leaving you speechless.

In an angry mood, some versions of ATM's gobble up your credit/debit card just to teach you a lesson. Those who have had to obtain a duplicate/another card would give anything to forget that ordeal.

Fleeting thoughts cross your mind extolling the simplicity of the WM. It takes a coin and delivers a printed ticket or simply returns the coin. You are not a loser.

It whirs and whines and this does not upset you the least except your weight (you have lost the fight there) and a free prediction on the back of the ticket. The best deal you get out of this transaction is absolute transparency!

Pray, some bright guy comes with a friendlier ATM.