- 4 -
As luck would have it, nature cried the day I was to pay a bribe and a terrible storm came up. I reached the station before it started pouring only to find that Ganesh was not there yet. I decided to wait on the staircase. Suddenly there was a big burst of lightning and all the power of the station was gone. Slowly the smell of burning wax began filling u the police station and a thin little moustached man came and sat next to me. He asked me why was I sitting there and he had a really concerned look on his face. I began telling him my story and I stammered. I was actually looking for some pity. It took me a full 30 dark and hot minutes in the lightless police station to tell him my story. I asked him if he could help me. He simply said,
‘No no! I myself have come for a case. These people are tried to burn my sister alive in her husband’s home and I came here to complaint against that. Then they questioned my sister about everything and since then she’s been in the lockup.’
I got up and left the stairs.
I decided to wait at the gate of the station hoping Ganesh would see me the first person when he walks in. I couldn’t go out as it was pouring heavily and suddenly something happened. I saw something drop by right in front of me and there was a loud crash. I could see broken pieces of glass near my feet and in reflex I jumped in the opposite direction. Around me a lot of other people were in the same position and it took us around half-a-minute of understand that the glass had broken off the old window upstairs due to the wind and had crashed right in front of me. Had I been one step in front than I was, it would have fallen on me and I could surely say goodbye to seeing Ganesh. Perhaps I’d have seen the Ganesh with the trunk after that but then I wouldn’t have been able to make you read this. A really fat and heavily moustached person came running from inside and shouted on everyone (including me) for the falling of the glass as if we’d actually cut it and thrown it. I figured that he was the commanding officer in the police station and I should tell him why I’ve been waiting there for the last 2 hours but after the screaming, I thought it’d be better to wait for the trunkless Ganesh. Finally, Ganesh appeared and was fast on duty. First he quickly took the 400/- and then asked me for the certificate to sign. I would have liked it the other way round but you don’t argue with a fat guy who seems like he’s a regular assassin and he works in the police. I followed his instructions and gave him the paper. It was a usual format of the company and I’d handwritten my name, the name of my college, my pin code and other small details in it. Ganesh took it inside the building and asked me to wait.
While I was waiting I decided to have a look around and I saw small hut-like rooms within the compound of the station where entire families lived. Maybe it was where the civil servants lived after they put the government apartments given to them on rent. Ganesh came out and said the work could not be done. The officer didn’t like the handwritten paper and wanted to see everything printed. The place did not have a printing machine so he asked me to come the next day with the paper. I wanted to leave the place but I thought that if I leave Ganesh once, I may not be seeing him of my 400 bucks again.
I asked Ganesh why wouldn’t he sign it and with my money firm in his pocket, Ganesh went mad at me. He shouted that he wasn’t a police officer. He was a clerk who knew the people in the police station and he couldn’t sign it. His signature wouldn’t work. Finally, there came a realisation which I hope had come earlier. No one cares to help you once the money is out of your pocket. I asked if there was any printing shop nearby. Ganesh said that there was one but wasn’t near enough for me to walk to and make it in time. He called another big fat moustached man Prakash and asked him to give me a ride on his motorbike to the printers’. We reached the place and the guy saw the format and typed down everything in CoralDraw hitting every button as if it was his punching bag. That made him look very serious and committed to his work but I thought I could do the same stuff in half the time in MS Word. After getting the spelling mistakes corrected by Mr. Speedtype (no auto-correction in CoralDraw) I got a copy of the print. It would have been 5/- for a print and Prakash said it’s no big deal and I’m younger to him, so he paid. We went back to Ganesh with the paper and he finally got it signed. I looked at the A4 sheet of paper which had a stamp of the district commissioner and had wasted my entire day. But it gave me lessons. Harsh lessons but lessons alright. I put the paper in my bag and went out on the damp roads to find a rickshaw with which I could haggle to go back to college. Prakash spot me on the way.
‘10/- for the print,’ were his parting words.
