Suresh had worked for eleven years and checked his PF balance exactly twice: once to see if it existed, and once to see if it was still there.
One Saturday his daughter Tanvi found the UAN number on an old salary slip and logged in for him. The balance made Suresh sit down. “That much? From my own salary?” he asked. “You paid it yourself, Papa,” said Tanvi. “Every month. Automatically.”
Suresh spent the next hour in respectful silence, the way people look at an old fixed deposit receipt found inside a coat pocket. He learned that the employer matched a share, that interest was credited yearly, and that withdrawing it every time he changed jobs had been quietly costing him years of growth.
He promised never to withdraw it for a holiday again. Tanvi asked if he would at least check the balance twice a year. Suresh said he would check it every Diwali, along with the gold price and the cousin’s opinions.
The passbook is now a bookmark on his phone, placed between the weather app and the cricket score. It is the only app he has never been disappointed by.