Life is Strange, the Law Stranger

On many a night the last few months, I sat with some friends in a park at night, the only park I know in this city that stays open beyond 8pm. We used to sit there and smoke a joint or two, chit-chat a bit about this and that, and then go our respective ways. As always, the outdoors felt good, what with a light breeze and the sounds of traffic long dead.

There is also a basketball court in the same compound, and we used to sometimes see two policemen sitting there and eating dinner. Since we were not really bothering anyone or making noise or being a nuisance in general, they paid us no heed. Everything went by merrily till this incident.

This cop shows up on his bike, and after parking it, heads straight for where we are sitting. First thing he does in the dark is click a picture of us. Not with his phone, but with a proper Samsung digital camera he is carrying around in his pocket. He then proceeds to question us, and then to search us. Sure enough, we get busted for whatever little we had with us.

Since I don't speak the local language, I was spared most of his homilies, which seemed ridiculously hollow, considering he took away the intoxicants and the rolling paper (as they always do), and took a sizable bribe too, to not lock us up in the police station overnight. Happy Diwali for him and his family, that's for sure.

Anyway, so I read up the law surrounding drug use in the country. Strange, at the very least. For one, there are no different classes of drugs. They are all lumped together, from weed to opium to cocaine to amphetamines. Anyway, if I have 1 gram of weed on me or 1 kilo, the punishment is the same. A fine of Rs 10,000 or prison for 6 months, or both. Same for up to 100 grams of hashish. Just hope the presiding judge didn't have a fight with his wife before leaving the house that morning.

But if I proclaim myself to be an addict, and also volunteer to undergo treatment, I get away without any penalty, neither financial nor temporal. Wow. Goes to show that only the most moronic lawmakers can profess such abject belief in the goodness of my shallow heart to actually give up such a harmless indulgence.

Un-Static State of States

After much dithering in the name of consultations, the government of the day has announced the creation of the state of Telangana. More like, ripping it out from the current day Andhra Pradesh, as we know it. But anyway, it has been done.

It is slightly disconcerting to know that the geography of India I learnt in school, and the maps I learnt to draw, don't hold true any more. But when compared to how some scientists decided that Pluto ain't a planet no more, this becomes much easier to get my head around.

People are people, always wanting to cash in the "me-too" cheque they write to themselves. So we suddenly have renewed demands for new states erupting across the length and breadth of the country. I have no stance to take on such demands, but I do have a stance on the mindless violent disruption of public life and destruction of public property that more often than not accompanies these demands.

Of course, there are those wiser than me, having clever things to say about demands for separate statehood. A subject on which, as I just admitted, I have no personal point of view. Take the very enlightened Shobha De, for instance. Or is it Shobhaaaaaaa Deee? Anyway, how many a's and e's she uses in her name doesn't change the fact that she has a stance on the matter, a stance she is unafraid of expressing, because, as she claims, she is a Mumbaikar, an Indian and a woman. Good for her, all three.

But a stance she has. If we take the literal route, which many of our hilarious politicos have taken, her stance will seem to show she wants lots of little little bits and pieces of land all over the place, each called a state of its own. If we take the ironic route, as she herself suggests we do, she seems to be against the whole idea of dividing states.

The question that baffles me is this: what does she know about the creation of a state to hold any point of view on a matter that is very visibly leading to very strong passions on both sides of the debate? Or is being a writer about the social life of Bombay enough to grant one the insight needed?

Drunk Driving and the Police

After what I can now perhaps term an exceptionally bad time back in 2009, things seem to have changed somewhat for the better. I drive more often now after drinking than I did then, and I haven't been busted once. No, I don't want you to tell me how I shouldn't be driving under the influence in the first place. We all have our varying limits, and when I know I have crossed mine, I sleep over. And yes, if it is a lesson I will only learn the hard way, I am quite okay with that. Anyway, back to what I was saying...

I haven't been busted, but I have been taking the same routes, going by the same check-posts and driving as I always do. Sometimes, the cops stop me, but mostly, I don't know why, they don't. In the last 11 months or so, I recall being stopped four times. Once, I had only had one beer, and was well within permissible limits. The next time, the cop leaned in to my window and asked me my name. I had a few whiskeys in me, and the cop should have been able to smell it over the mint I was chewing, but he must have had his reasons to let me go.

The third incident was quite funny. These cops didn't have a breathalyser on them, so one of them asked me to breathe out as he quite literally stuck his nose in to my open mouth. If he had just asked me, I would have told him I had been drinking, but maybe he liked smelling stale alcohol on strangers' breaths, who knows. Anyway, he pulls away, and with a grin that showed his teeth in the dark, said only one word: "Drink!" I told him I had been drinking earlier, but hadn't consumed alcohol in the last six hours, and that was pretty close to the truth, actually. Not six, but about five hours, was what it was.

Since I can't speak Kannada and he couldn't speak Hindi or English, I had to get out of the car and meet the "senior" cop standing by his bike. He told me the legal procedure, and I assured him I was well aware of it, and that I would love to abide the law. He asked me my name, what I did, where I stayed, and then asked me why I wanted to go through the hassle of going to the police station to get my breath analysed, and then have my car impounded and then go to the court to pay a fine to have it released. I told him such was the law. This nonsense went on for a while, and in between, there were two bikes that, in their bid to get through the check-post quickly, crashed in to each other right next to the cops. I was amazed to see that the "senior" cop was still entirely interested in only me. Anyway, at some point, after I had refused his offer to "settle" things 4-5 times, he said, and I almost quote, "Just give 200 rupees and go." To my defiant "Why?", he gave the most ridiculous answer imaginable, and here I quote verbatim, "Because you are owner."

He wanted me to give him money merely because he thought I could afford to. Wow. What a moron. And so far removed from the nice man who stopped me last night, who stopped me with his breathalyser on the ready. As I rolled my window down, I could hear the resetting beeps as he fingered it, and the moment I put my mouth towards it without saying a word, he pulled back, smiled, and asked "Are you drunk?" I think that was close to the last thing I expected at the time, and didn't even comprehend what he said. "Huh?" Repeat smile, repeat question: "Are you drunk?" Honestly, I answered in the negative, and he said, smiling "OK, go."

So much for cop-bashers, who paint all of them with the same brush. And in a somewhat Cartman-esque way, he knew how to respect my authority!

New year greeting verse

This year's verse: a bit late in coming, and a little too nice for my own liking. But all the same, here is 'Post Mayan'.

The past was hell of a blast
and the present is similar too
Rift in the emo-time continuum
can cause various shades of blue

Ah, bah, who gives a blah?
Loss teaches more than it takes
So learn to pick out those gems
from among the sack full of fakes

Don't fret over what's gone away
Don't worry about what's left behind
Life goes on, generally beautiful
Stay healthy of heart, strong of mind