My persistent naiveté was jolted once again this morning. I had just got off the train and was walking down the platform, when I was stopped by a ticket checker, who took a cursory look at my commuter pass and let me go. Next to her was a lady who seemed very upset. As I fumbled to put the card back in my purse, she took a banknote out of hers, folded it up in her palm and offered it to the ticket checker, saying, “I really have not remembered to buy my ticket. I told you, my aunt was ill and I have just got back from seeing her…” I had started walking on, but something made me turn and look back – the ticket checker was holding the banknote and waving the other lady onwards. One of them was saved the embarrassment of legal process, while the other made a neat profit out of an unfortunate situation.
It is not something new, or something that has never happened to me before. In fact, I was caught in just the same sort of net when I was living in Delhi for a short time. I was on my way to a meeting in one of the tony parts of the vast and sprawling city, when I – honest, it was without knowing I was doing it – jumped a red light. As I turned into a quiet, tree-overhung lane, a policeman suddenly materialised in front of my little car. In a doom-laden but somehow satisfied tone, he described to me the seriousness of my crime. A brief consultation with the friend who was in the car with me was followed by a sense of resignation. I had to pay the man, or make many frustratingly futile trips to the police station to get my license back, she told me. So, being of the ilk who asks if she wants to know, I looked the cop-man in the eye and demanded, “How much?” in my best Dilli-Hindi. The man looked even more furtive, leaned close into my window and held out his hand, nicely hidden from view from any onlookers. Shuddering with a certain disgust and cringing rather at this large and sweaty unknown male hand practically under my nose, I handed over some money and shot off on the wrong gear as soon as the policeman was clear of my car. In the rear-view mirror I could see him walking back to his post under the tree, hands in his nicely-filled pockets, a smug swagger to his stroll.
I see this happening all the time, all around me. Sometimes it is at the train station, other times at the just-jumped red light. It even happens at the police station itself. And you hear about this on a much larger scale, when high-up government officials make fortunes selling themselves and their ethics for a life with a little less hassle and a little more jam. Does that make all of us bad people? Criminals? Or just human beings trying to get on with the everyday process of living?
1 comment:
I believe it is the victim himself responsible for the crime that happens on the scene. Had you were prepared to go through the official procedures when you crossed a red light, or when the lady was asked to pay her fine for not buying her ticket - things would have been correct. But just because the cop asks a hundred bucks less than the actual fine or maybe we hated going to the court to pay the fine...
So - who is wrong??
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