Banker's Belly

Sometimes I think I have all the qualities necessary for me to be a successful banker. I also feel that the trait of success – a banker's belly – is slowly taking shape. Banker's Belly? What is so unique about it?

Apart from getting inflated with the passage of time, the banker's belly is the storehouse of all the trash from what we take to stay the course in a corporate environment. We look smart on the pictures because we hold our breaths until the click. In fact, most of the time we hardly breathe. Most of the time we breathe unconsciously so that we can do our job without interruption.

In a struggle to eat healthy from breakfast to dinner, a banker's belly is losing everything but the fat from the belly. The expansion of various international chain food industries in the name of healthy and authentic food in the Dhaka city owes its success to a banker's belly. And the so called 'non fat' ingredients seem to be truly successful for the erosion of substance from our wallets.

Seriously speaking, we are different, different from the whole world in our choice of food. We always tend to add some extra adjectives before the thing we eat or drink. Like, we don't drink tea; we drink 'green tea'. We don't drink milk; we drink 'non-fat' milk.

Currently a new industry emerged and the word 'organic' with the food items available in the market mainly allure the banker's belly. The ultimate result is that the necessity of earning extra money to purchase those organic foods keeps us stick to our chairs for extra time. And how can I condemn the belly getting an extra round shape as all the trash is being thrown into the banker's belly by the corporate house itself.

Obviously we can go to the gym so that the remaining bucks on our wallets after purchasing those extra organic foods can boost up the business of another corporate. The radical growth of gyms, yoga and meditation centers are constantly promising healthy lives to us. And many of us manage to go to gym by adding some extra number with bills of our credit cards. The ultimate result is frustration which transforms the belly into a balloon.

I don't suppose someone has heard about the measurements like quarter spoon, semi spoon, semi quarter spoon, etc which we frequently use to measure the sugar we consume with tea and coffee. Here, we seem to be extra conscious as if taking less sugar would definitely shrink the circumference of the banker's belly! Practically by giving up sugar from our lives, we are becoming more and more unhappy and robotic so that we are able to make extra profit for the corporate houses.

'Extra mileage' is the term which is frequently used in the banking industry. The definition of extra mileage is an extra nebulous, it is akin to a mirage in the desert. Every time we try to get our heads around it, it seems like a puzzle. And our effort to achieve extra mileage ultimately ends in despair which can only be resolved by drinking anything but water. So, the runners on the track of extra mileage have bigger bellies! No wonder!

Every time I console myself with the view that I am selling out five days of my life to make the rest two in a week more comfortable and beautiful, there appears a huge "but" above my head? We are constantly running on a never-ending track to touch the finish line. Life is getting shorter each day as the time which is to be spent meaningfully with our family and friends has already been sold out to the corporations.

Work-life balance is the greatest farce that the corporations pretend to take up. The corporate bodies provoke us to challenge ourselves to reach for and touch the sky. We work hard to achieve that impossible limit that we set for ourselves. As we keep at it our bellies metamorphoses into paunches, exposing thereby the true impact of the corporate life.