It was the day after
Diwali and we were returning to Mumbai from Pune, having just crossed the
expressway. As we were about to take a flyover, we saw a policeman
gesticulating excitedly – waving at us to pull the car to the side of the road.
He seemed to look delighted to have made a suitable catch – one that would
prove amply profitable - a great way to add to his Diwali bonanza.
Puzzled as we were, as
we had neither been speeding, nor driving without having fastened the seat
belt, we stopped the car and rolled down the window panes, looking at him
questioningly.
“No no Roll them up - a
little more, ok now stop” said he frantically in Marathi.
We did as we were told,
still completely in the dark as to what he meant. When the window panes were at
the appropriate height, he scraped against the glass with the tip of his
fingers and then with his nails - as if he were trying to peel something off.
Unfortunately for him he found nothing.
Not willing to give up
so easily, he continued, “You’re not allowed to have tinted glasses for your
windows”
“These aren’t tinted -
they came with the car. We haven’t added any film either” - replied my husband
in Hindi, as he is a non-Maharashtrian.
This seemed to somehow
add to his glee as he intensified his authoritative tone and continued with
renewed gusto - now in Hindi.
“Well its the Supreme
Court order - haven’t you read it?”
“We’ve been driving the
same car for many years now and we have never been pulled up so far”
“That’s changed now and
you should know the rules when you drive. Show me your license”, he
demanded.
So far this conversation
had taken place only between the cop and my husband who had been driving the
car. He reached into his wallet for his license and handed it over to the
policeman who continued with his tirade in the typically colloquial version of
Hindi that is spoken in Mumbai.
“You have broken the law
and so you’ll have to pay for it” - mustering up as dictatorial and
intimidating a tone as he could.
By now I had reached the
end of my patience and just had to break my silence. I retorted in fluent
Marathi that, in that case, he ought to stop almost every other car on the road
as they all had window panes with far darker tints than ours. Why was he
singling us out?
Visibly taken aback and
almost disappointed to hear me speak Marathi, the cop was tongue tied for just
a moment before he regained his composure. But like a deflated balloon, he
seemed to have lost his clout, not quite prepared for such a situation.
He tried to salvage his
position by saying - “ Madam you need not have interfered, this was between me
and him.”
Indeed, so that you
could continue with your arrogant tone, feeling smug about having been able to
bully someone who you think is at a disadvantage as he is not from your state -
I thought to myself.
Although, my husband
would not have given in to his unreasonable accusations anyway, he decided to
humour him further by allowing him to go on talking, just to see where the
conversation would lead to.
“I wasn’t speaking to
you anyway and I had even returned his license - why did you have to interrupt
when you weren’t being spoken to?” rambled on the cop.
Ok - so what he really
meant to say was why should a woman butt in when two men are conversing? This
was taking on a sexist tinge now.
But as I did not want to
show how his comment had rankled me, I spoke as calmly as possible -
“I butted in because I
did not like the tone you were using on folks you know are decent and law
abiding. Why not try the same tone on some real ruffians instead?”
And so saying we drove
off.
Although this is such a
common occurrence nowadays, that we no longer bat an eyelid or even bother
ruminating about it, the incident has continued to rankle and perturb me. If the
protectors of the law display such petty mentality - using the powers vested in
them by the government, to harass innocent people and look for opportunities to
extort money, what hope have we to be able to achieve the status of a
civilised, developed society? And what was equally disturbing was the
xenophobic attitude that fuelled the malicious urge to try to make underdogs of
people who did not belong to the same region/community. How easily have we
fallen prey to communal propaganda that divides minds, not to mention the male
chauvinism that seems to have become second nature to almost half of our
population?
All I could allow myself
was the smug satisfaction about having successfully foiled the policeman’s
plans of adding to his Diwali bonanza.
