Criticising a bank is always a bad idea. For one, some of the most learned economists consistently fail to arrive at a consensus on how Indian banks ought to behave. The last couple of years alone saw two qualified governors put their hands up and leave the RBI for reasons that will probably never see the light of day. Then there's the secrecy surrounding almost everything banks do, from hidden fees to charges that ought not to make sense but are openly enforced nonetheless. Finally, there is jargon. When confronted with allegations, bankers respond with figures, clauses and legalese because that has long been the refuge of scoundrels in our never-ending bureaucratic nightmare.

How do banks get away with the things they do anyway? How do they give away crores of our money to villains who can be spotted a mile away, gleefully write off waivers and non-performing assets, then shamelessly beg the government for handouts to save themselves from their own mistakes? There was a whole lot of stuff swept under the carpet in 2018, which is easy when you have a government that does its best to distract you with non-issues. CEOs of private banks were named and shamed for handing out loans to family and friends. What happened to those men and women? What happened to the committees set up to examine their alleged crimes? How were they allowed to fade into the sunset with severance packages that would take most of us a lifetime to accumulate? And why was there no outcry given that the money being distributed belonged to the rest of us?