One night at Nigdi Police Chowki!

As you all know, I am one carefree person. So a ‘noble’ that I was fondly called a ‘Maram’ by close friends. Maram, the Malayalam for tree, is slang for anyone who follows Newton’s first law of motion - Every object in a state of rest or uniform motion tends to remain in that state unless an external force is applied to it. For me, I just remain in the state even after the external force has been applied, which makes me a Van-Maram, the biggest of the trees! Ok, too much of explanation. To put it in simple words, I was very calm, quiet and ‘mind-my-own-business’ person and thus very vulnerable to cruel and mean world out there.

The story happens in the beautiful village of Nigdi, located on the Western Ghats, packed between the grand Pune city and charming Lonavala-Khandala ranges. Mr. Navi (nothing to do with Avatar Nav'is), infamous singer among our mallu friends got promotion at work and he was throwing a dinner party to share his excitement. Also, my big brother at work (big in all sense), was leaving our company with aspirations for a better opportunity. So we decided to dedicate our weekend in their joyful company and planned the party at GP (Golden Palms). Golden Palms has been one of our regular food place, be it a friendly hang out or a team lunch. This big restaurant located by the side of Mumbai-Pune highway has huge open sitting area, which made it ideal for dinner parties.

A small gang had gathered at GP by 8:00 pm on that Friday and I joined the group along with my friends Sam, Joby and Paul. With more people joining us, the scene warmed up pretty quickly. Big brother was all excited with our affection and with little help from his Scottish friend (who comes in a pretty bottle with not so pretty price tag) he swiftly got into his full form. The scenes that followed were quite 'soothing’ to both eyes and ears. As he reached the summit of his performance, he started unleashing his excellent vocab skills in almost all languages known to him and this time not just us but the bearers of the GP were also the targets. Very minute versions of these shows are common in GP and the bearers there have witnessed similar outbursts since IT doomed the Nigdi area and created a new creed of youngsters with thick wallets.

An elderly gentleman sitting near to our table didn’t seem to enjoy this show and made some remarks directly pointing towards us. This started a small brawl between us and the managers, and head waiters rushed to take control of the situation. But big bro was in no mood to take it lightly and started to push them away. That seemed like a needed trigger to turn the situation into a complete chaos. Bearers couldn’t find a better opportunity to unleash their frustration and big brother soon turned into a high quality punching bag – how much you kick and punch, it still remains steady! We tried our best to pull him out of the mess, but 4 of us were no match to his fury. We relived ‘Matrix-reloaded’ when we saw the bottles, tables, chairs and some bearers flying away – thanks to our big brother!

As an experienced mess-maker, big brother found his way out of the pandemonium in no time. We couldn’t leave so easily because we were the easy preys and had our collars secure in the hands of the head waiter. After all, they needed someone to pay for the mess! Left with no choice, we paid the expense and left the place. Outside the gate we were given a warm welcome by Nigdi police, who later took four of us to the police chowki. That elderly man, with whom our brother had messed earlier, was uncle to the site DYSP and he had immediately called DYSP for help.

In spite of being an Indian, I was never a great fan of cricket, I played it, watched it once a while and i.e. all about it! I never thought that cricket would be such a life saver. It was 2007 20-20 cricket world Cup final between India and Pakistan. All the officers in the chowki were so busy watching the live telecast that they completely ignored our existence. In other terms, they did get time to perform their routine exercises on us and that saved us from any physical damages. We were confined to a small cell and Sam, Joby and Paul were all tensed and were angry to find me peacefully sleeping near one corner. “How the hell can he sleep when he is in Police custody?” The night got out without any more dramas and in the morning we were welcomed by a wonderful news. It was a Saturday, and the coming Monday was some state holiday - the courts will be closed, which means we can’t get a bail for the next three days!! Damn!!! And they can’t keep us in the cell for long, so we will be transferred to Yerwada Central Jail!! Can things get any better? But we didn’t lose hope; we know Pune police very well and their weakness :-).

Mr. JJ – my friend’s Project Manager and the godfather of all mallus in our company had a commendable connection within the Mallu big shots of Pune and he was more than ready to help us out. He made some important phone calls, came to the station, had a chat with the officers; but still things were not moving ahead. After all it’s Pune, the cradle of corruption, and Pune Police - the glorified beggars. I am not exaggerating, I have my own reasons! Once in the RTO office, they asked for money as if it was for some processing charge and then gave me a receipt for that. Later I found out that receipt (it was in Marathi) was some donation coupon for some function which happened 2 years back!! Howz that? Even though illicit money, they need to keep track of it too, you know. Another instance- when my friend went to complain about a bike theft, he was taken to the side and told this – “This complain writing is a tiresome process, the writer doesn’t get much paid. And you know we are not paid as you (IT) guys, so please pay at least 1000 bucks to file a complaint!” My friend bargained the amount down to 500 bucks. In India, you are born with bargain skills, even if it’s your school mark sheet, you ask teacher for extra 2-3 marks! Just like that, it won’t hurt if you get it, right? ;-)

Bargaining reminds me of something else, whenever you are caught by the traffic police, before getting out of the vehicle, you clear you wallet and keep max 100-200 bucks in it. Because we have to open the wallet in front of them and they will ask more if they see more! But with the advent of debit cards, things changed. If they find out that you are an IT guy, the next thing would be (after taking your driving license) – “we will wait, you can go and get money from the ATM”!!

Coming back to the story – the officers finally yielded for 13,000 rupees. Not a bad bargain for 4 people huh? Anyway, we were allowed to leave the chowki without any further problems! That was one hell of a day – at least for my friends ;-). If you ask me, I would say they should have mosquito repellants in chowkis!!