Encounters with Officialdom - 1

A pleasant Saturday evening. After weeks of running around and ‘follow-up’, I finally seem to have a permanent solution to the recurring problem with my car’s power windows! I roll down my window as I drive back home, partly to enjoy the pleasant breeze, and largely to relish the joy of a window that rolls down when I want it to :- )

As I navigate the steep bump in front of Figurine Fitness while speculating upon how I should celebrate my car’s fitness, I hear a rude honk from behind. A black Safari, with dark tinted glasses to match, evidently in a hurry to save the world (as usual!). The road is narrow with houses on both sides, and is speckled with numerous cars and side lanes a – I cannot risk accelerating beyond the 45kmph that I am currently at! But my friend in the Safari is more daring, and resumes his incessant honking. I raise my hand in the rear view mirror as a signal to him to take it easy. Suddenly, he swerves from the left, overtakes my car and then deliberately swerves to the right to ram into the passenger door, and then speeds away. For a moment, I can’t believe this has happened – I had heard of, and expected, such irrational behavior in Delhi, but not in peaceful Bangalore. My next thought is to give chase to express my indignation, but the pragmatic part of my brain is already telling me this won’t work – the guy is driving like a maniac, and I have no idea how many men are inside the car. I quickly note down the car’s registration number, and still in shock, drive to my home a km away to inspect the damage.

What I see breaks my heart! There is a huge dent on the left side of the bonnet, and an ugly scar running all along the passenger door! I am furious by now at the completely uncivilized and barbaric behavior of the guy – this can happen only in India! I decide I will not let him get away. Immediately, I call 101 to give them the car’s registration number, but they tell me I will need to go to a police station to file a case.

By this time, I am seething. I decide I will go to the station, but I also realize I need to mobilize some resources – a lone woman who cannot speak the local language (except – Kannada gottilla) is unlikely to meet with blazing success with the notorious Indian police. P is out of town; I call D –she’s out with friends; C doesn’t pick up his phone. My mind’s numb by now – all I want is to DO something! Heck, I’ll go it alone, I tell myself. 101 had directed me to the Ulsoor police station. I ignore the openly curious looks of all the men squatting in the station, and march up to the duty officer and pour out my tale. Our man, however, is unimpressed, and continues to pick his teeth as he gleefully informs me this is not under his jurisdiction. But 101 directed me to Ulsoor, I splutter. He shrugs. So what do I now, I demand. Go to Jeevan Bhima Nagar station, he states dismissively.

Thanks, I mutter, I didn’t expect any better from you, so why be surprised. By now the angry indignation is wavering – going by this experience, I am unlikely to get anywhere even at JBN. So do I bow in and keep silent, like most of us do, ineffectual against the notoriously corrupt SYSTEM, I wonder. Not quite yet, I decide. If we ‘evolved’ people also start giving in without a fight, then the future of our country is indeed bleak.

As I drive to JBN, I again try to mobilize some resources – H, my landlord’s son is out with friends, but he suggests I contact Uncle whose clinic is very close to the station. Unfortunately, Uncle has just stepped out, so I take a deep breath and decide to face this alone.

Unlike the sprawling campus of Ulsoor, JBN station is a small corner house converted into a station – two or three small dinghy rooms in a straight line, one room leading to another, all crowded with harassed fellow sufferers. As you move from one room to the next, you get the feeling of being sucked into the vortex of a deep well – or maybe it is just my imagination working overtime! However, I am pleasantly surprised when the first officer I meet with offers me a seat before I can spill out my tale. I am escorted into the innermost chamber (the bottom of the well?), where two or three officers are frenziedly manning the phones. One of the officers remarks they got the car details from 101, and have traced the car’s owner. A driver was driving the car, he says – we know the owner, he is a nice man. If he’s such a nice man he should be more careful about the people he chooses to drive a car, I rage. The officer shrugs and says the owner lost his son a few days ago, thanks to the manic driving of one of his drivers.

I am so angry by now that I have no sympathy for the owner, even when I hear about his son’s death. What about my case, I demand? We can give you the phone number of the owner and you can negotiate a settlement, the officer says. But I don’t want settlement, I fume – I want to meet the driver and I want to see him face the consequences (probably slap him, Hindi movie style? But I don’t say that!). The other alternative is that you file a case with us, the matter will go to court, your car will need to be left with us for the examination, and well, you let the law take its course, he suggests with a deadpan expression.

I can see where he is leading to by now. In my beloved country, the law literally takes its own course, and a very long and tortured course spread over decades at that! Letting the law takes its own course would mean constant haranguing (and bribe paying) by police officers, countless visits to the courts, endless dealings with petty officers...for in the Indian judicial system, the powerless (or less powerful) is guilty and the influential innocent, no proof needed.

My mind baulks, the resolve weakens. I had marched into the station demanding to “see justice done”, but in my outrage, I had momentarily forgotten what that means in India. And despite the odds, if I still decide to pursue the long path of justice, would I really be fighting against the ‘right’ accused? The owner claimed the accused was a driver, but because of the dark windows, I had no means of verifying the claim. For all I know, a family member was driving the car, and a poor man at the bottom of the food chain would pay the price (I have grown up on a staple of Hindi movies with such incidents you see). Or even if it was the driver who was at fault, maybe he was exhorted to drive faster by someone, or under pressure of an unrealistic deadline. Who could tell the real story?

Plagued by moral doubts, uncertainties and unease at the thought of dealing with the complex system, I decide to give in. I write out a letter, but I do not file it – instead, I meekly tell the officer I am open to negotiation, and head back home to retrieve what remains of my weekend.

In the end, I was left with a vague sense of disappointment . I was pleasantly surprised by the civility and responsiveness of the officers at JBN, and was glad that I did something (contrary to my middle class upbringing of deferentially giving in to the notorious system). Yet, I could not get over the nagging thought that a civilized society would never allow such incidents to take place at such alarming regularity, and that I, as a part of this so-called civilized society, was in a way as much to blame as the ‘system’.