During probation at Madras we closed the March accounts by hand, with the power gone and a row of hurricane lamps along the desks. Nobody left before the trial balance agreed. I have never trusted a number as much as I trusted that one.
It was the last week of March 1988 and I was six months into probation at the Southern Railway headquarters in Madras. The monsoon had come early and the power had gone at four in the afternoon, which in those days meant it was gone for the evening.
The Deputy FA&CAO did not send anyone home. Instead a row of hurricane lamps appeared along the desks of the compilation section, and the ledgers came out. Thirty of us — clerks, section officers, two probationers — worked the March closing by hand, each posting checked twice and called out aloud before it went in.
Somewhere around eleven the trial balance was struck. It did not agree. The difference was four rupees and sixty paise. Nobody left. We went back through every schedule, page by page, until an inspector found a transposition in the stores suspense — ninety-six written as sixty-nine. The room cheered as if a train had been saved.
I have used every accounting system Indian Railways has had since then. I have never trusted a number the way I trusted that one. It taught me that a balance is not a figure, it is a promise that every entry behind it has been looked at by someone who cared.
Reviewed and approved by the association on 21 Aug 2026