3.00 am that night: I am not sure if having a cup of tea at this hour of the night is a crime under the Indian penal code But When I and my friend were just about leaving the shop on a Pulsar, I heard a siren whine loud and clear.
"Pondy registration Pulsar, vandiya niruthunge " blared a megaphone, along with the whine. simply meaning " You morons on the Black pulsar stop the vehicle".
I, at first did not remember that the bike's registration number started PY 01 and continued working the accelerator. My friend's hands gripped my shoulders but it was sometime before I realized the graveness of the situation and came to a screeching halt a feet away from the new shiny white Hyundai. The car was perpendicular to the road. The police man's face inside was redder than the indicator on the top of his car. He came out with a scrap pad and a pen in his hand and so did his driver.
The cop: what is your name?
Me: Kumar.
The cop: and yours?
My friend: Ram
The cop: didn't you guys hear the siren?
My friend: yes we did, but...
The cop: at least the yelling over the megaphone?? What do you guys do? Software Engineers? Call centre?
Me: Sir, I am a Power electronics Engineer, with...
The cop: you are a what??
Me: I am an Electronics (He was lost...) I am a software Engineer..
The cop: and you?
My friend: I am running a consultancy.
The cop: running a what??
My friend: Business consultancy, staffing and setting up of BPOs(Obvious reaction of I did not understand a thing on the cops face!!!) er.. I am running a call centre.
Even as the driver was adding more scribbles on his pad, his walky went out loud. “Control room, Control room calling, (number and name of the station were pronounced )"
Control room: “Sir, one more on the list sir”
The cop: yes.
control room : " Male, wheatish, acne marks on face, alleged name Sekhar, mole on mid forehead, left chest, last seen with long hair(couldn't get a few words because of the noisy walky) wanted for theft and extortion, over.
The cop: okay. I only have a Kumar and Ram here, anyone’s on wanted list with these names??
(I and my friend simply looked at each other suppressing a smile)
Control room: Not anyone I know of let me check sir, over.
The cop: over.
I felt I almost fit in Sekhar's shoes whoever the hell he was. My reason of being on the road at 3.00 am was probably not convincing, we were asked to empty our pockets, checked for drunken driving, and were asked to hand over the bike's keys. We were soon inside a Toyota Qualis on the way to the police station, while some Policeman rode the Pulsar.
That was the first time I ever went inside a police station. There were at least five half-uniformed men, only one of them was awake. After another 15 minutes of answering another set of questions which included audacious ones like "if I had my underwear on and if I was in to drugs" and serious ones like "If I had my license and an NOC for the vehicle " (I neither had a license nor a NOC, I simply shook my head in the negative), we were allotted a wooden bench on one corner of the room. .
The station was neat, the big binders and papers, the weapons, tables everything was in order. Pictures of yesteryear leaders adorned the walls in symmetry. The wandering of my eyes stopped when I saw two young men in only their boxers crouching inside one of the cells, I started to sweat. After sometime we were offered tea by a boy of probably 15-16, which I gleefully accepted while my friend preferred to sleep sitting upright on the bench.
It was almost 5.00am and a good one and half hours of looking at the wall, when one of the older uniforms summoned us. The cop who had brought us to the station was sleeping on his table with a snore. The old man jotted down only our names and asked us to collect the vehicle at 8.00 am sharp in the morning. We walked almost a mile to my house.
When I woke up it was 8.00 am already. I woke up my friend and we were on another bike very soon in rumpled clothes, half brushed and half made up. The old man was almost leaving his table when we rushed in. He simply gave us the keys and more importantly with no questions. The two men inside the cell were still crouching as they were 3 hours before.
As I got out I saw the Hyundai Accent parked in front of the station, like an angry kid I wanted to break at least one of those shiny glasses.
