Policeman gets poorer

This time I had a short and hilarious stint with a policeman standing near the Hyderabad Deccan railway station waiting for me to come…

After spending some four special days with us, it was departure time for my in-laws. They had to catch “Charminar Express” from Deccan railway station which was around 4-5 kms from my residence. I took my bike and my brother-in-law hopped on and we started our journey towards station amidst busy crowd and congested traffic. As we were approaching the entrance gates of the station, suddenly a traffic policeman (junior rank) held my bike’s handle and steered us towards the road side. I knew this was going to be an interesting event because I had all documents in place.

As I removed my helmet he started his routine dialogue, “NOC, PUC, Insurance papers agar hai to dikhao… nahin to challaan bharo”. I started smiling at him knowing the fact that he was wasting so much of his energy over fruitless attempt to extract extra money from me. As I showed him the road tax slip, he was stunned but he still had the hope that can make him rich by few hundreds. As I showed him pollution certificate and RC he could feel his hopes dying in the burial. The next document was insurance paper and I couldn’t get hold of the latest one. He was quick on commenting on this. He said, “yeh insurance purana hai...2007 ka..challaan 301 rupaiya..gaadi side mein lagaao”. I again smiled at him and was feeling giving him a salute for his determination. As I unfolded second insurance document which was again an expired one, he got delighted and immediately called up his supervisor and said in one tone, “Saahb, Rajasthan ki gaadi hai, insurance nahin hai, 301 rupaiya challan”. For few moments I was frightened by his excitement and thought again whether I had the valid document or I was living in an illusion. As his superior was taking note of all the details of the bike, I got hold of the original valid insurance document and with a wide grin I showed that to the policeman. He stared at it for some 2-3 minutes and with shear disappointment he couldn’t even recognise where the validity dates were mentioned in the document..!! He seems dull, disheartened and lifeless as he held this document in his hands. As I folded all the documents in my bag and faced up to ask policeman if he has any more queries, he was gone with the wind and was mingled with ongoing traffic (maybe in hope of another one. I told you, I salute at his determination).

In the end, as we fired the engine, the supervisor (still standing there, writing the necessary details of the challan) raised his head and asked us, “RC dikhao”…and we started laughing..!!!