I spent years in Indian banking. I left, and I still think about Sundays. Not the ones I spent at home. But, the ones I spent at the branch.

Anyone who has worked in a bank knows the feeling. You don't resent it, exactly. You understand why it's needed. But somewhere between the second cup of tea and the fifth reconciliation, a rebellious question starts popping up in your mind:

How much of my life belongs to this institution?

Last week, at a party, someone made a joke about the turn of events that happened in the last week of September when bankers had to work on a Sunday due to a proposed strike which was cancelled on Sunday eve. It made me think about the spectrum of feelings I used to feel when I was in one of the public sector banks in India and had to go through such situations. And yes, there were a lot of Sundays I’d worked on without a comp-off or extra pay. Therefore, I sat down to write a bit about it.

What happened

On September 23, 2026, the Ministry of Finance announced that Public Sector Banks and Regional Rural Banks would stay open on Sunday, September 27. This happened because a three-day nationwide bank strike was looming, and the goal was to shield customers from a long banking disruption. Rarely, I’ve seen RBI, Ministry, and others involved working at this pace. At least not for any of the demands bankers were making.

Then, on the evening of September 27, after talks with the Indian Banks' Association, the United Forum of Bank Unions deferred the strike. That included the indefinite strike planned for October 26.

The confrontation was postponed. But, I’m sure there were a lot of frustrated faces when they read about it. So the important question is: What was going through the minds of the people who showed up that Sunday?

I can't speak for them. I can only tell you what I would have been thinking, and what I've learned since leaving banking about why it matters.

Every job has a second contract

Your appointment letter covers salary, duties and rules. It doesn't cover the real agreement. Psychologists call it the psychological contract: the unwritten understanding of fairness, trust and reciprocity between you and your employer. I give you my diligence, my accountability, my emotional energy on difficult days. You recognise that I have a life outside this building.

Bankers give a lot. Customer trust, regulatory responsibility and operational discipline all sit on their shoulders, and nobody sees the emotional labour.

That's why the demand for a five-day week was never really about two extra days off. To me, it was about predictability. It's the ability to plan a weekend, to say yes to a family function, to know your time is yours.

When flexibility only flows one way, the contract becomes weak.

The question inside people starts to shift from "How much more can I give?" to "How much of me is owed?"

You can believe in both things at once

Before anyone tags me as an aloof person who doesn’t understand the importance of banking, let me tell you about two beliefs that I had when I was in a bank.

I believed in banking as an essential service. Pensioners need their money. Small businessmen need their cheques cleared. A branch that fails them fails something bigger than itself.

But, I also believed my time mattered.

Both beliefs were honest, and holding both is uncomfortable. That uncomfortable feeling sometimes looks like anger, it looks like tiredness, like a little less initiative, like doing exactly what's required and no more.

For an institution, that's the real risk. Productivity doesn't fall off a cliff. The extra that was coming from employees quietly drains away, the discretionary effort that no policy can order and no circular can demand.

People can accept "no." They struggle with "no one listened."

This is the idea I wish I'd understood earlier in my career.

People judge outcomes, but they also judge the process behind them. Consider the five-day week. The IBA's recommendation and the March 2024 settlement had already brought the issue into the formal negotiating framework. Yet implementation still depended on government approval and further clearances. By September 2026, it had reached another round of confrontation. The agreement to form a high-level committee opens a path to more discussion. It doesn't, by itself, bring the five-day week.

I'm not here to judge the decision-makers. Governments and regulators weigh many things I never saw from my side of the counter. But I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of a long process. You start asking quiet questions.

Is anyone acknowledging this? Is there a timeline? Do I know why it's taking this long? Do I have any say?

A hard answer, delivered fairly, can be accepted. A reasonable answer, delivered without explanation, can still make us mad. Communication is not consultation. Consultation is not participation. Bankers can tell the difference.

Rest isn't laziness

Somewhere beneath all the components of this debate is a bigger question.

What is work for?

Economically, it's an exchange: labour for pay. But work is also identity, purpose, contribution and self-respect. Many of us in banking feel that deeply. And yet a person is not just their usefulness.

There's an old philosophical idea that people should be treated as ends in themselves, never simply as tools for someone else's objectives. It sounds abstract until you're standing in a branch at 7 PM on a Saturday, thinking about your child's school event you've missed or your child you haven’t seen for weeks.

Rest isn't the absence of productivity. It's where relationships survive, where the mind recovers, where we become people beyond our job titles.

An institution that depends on human commitment has to respect human limits. In the end, that serves the institution too.

Patience is harder than protest

A strike, whatever you think of it, is more than an economic tool. It's a statement of belonging. Thousands of people say, together, this matters to us.

Deferring it is not obviously a win or a loss. It can mean patience. It can mean faith in dialogue. It can mean giving promises some space to become decisions.

But it asks something difficult. People who have rallied around a cause now have to shift from collective resistance to collective patience.

That takes trust.

The UFBU's September 28 circular described the deferment as a chance for the commitments made in negotiations to become concrete decisions. The unions kept the option of reviewing future action based on progress.

Whether it feels like progress or like one more extension of uncertainty will depend on what happens next.

What I'd say now, from the outside

I don't have a neat conclusion about whether banks should run five days or six. That's for people far better placed than me.

What I do know is this.

Banks must stay dependable. Customers shouldn't become collateral in industrial disputes. I believed that then and I believe it now.

But employees shouldn't be asked to absorb every inconvenience just because the service is essential. Both responsibilities are real, and they aren't opposites. A bank that treats its people well tends to be a bank that serves its customers well. Because, bank serves through its employees only.

What matters, I think, is reciprocity.

Institutions ask for commitment, resilience, adaptability and ownership. Those can't be ordered into existence. They grow out of trust, fairness and respect.

A banker is also a parent, a spouse, a friend, a son or daughter. A person with dreams that have nothing to do with banking.

The institution may own the working day. It doesn't own the whole person.

So the question was never really whether a banker will show up on a Sunday. Most will. I did.

The question is whether the institution will listen when that banker asks for a life beyond Monday to Saturday. Or Monday to Friday, hopefully.