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!
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!
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