Honestly Corrupt Traffic Cop

Last week I was driving to office with my colleague with whom I carpool. We were lost in the conversation and turning around a bend when I saw the white hand outstretched ahead of my car. Sadly it was no angel but a traffic havaldar supposedly doing his duty.

I had inadvertently broken a traffic signal. Now the time to bribe… the thing about Indian cops, any type of them , is that you safely assume that they are susceptible to bribing. If you meet one who doesn’t take one, you should buy a lottery ticket that day.

Here I was getting out of my car thinking how much I would lose… I chided myself to be more careful next time. I walked up to the cop and tried to walk out the mess by making a excuse that the tempo ahead prevented me from getting the view of the signal which probably was true had I even bothered to look at the signal. By the way, the tempo too had been caught. Anyways the cop was too old in this trade to be deceived by me and gave me a lamer reason why I was in the wrong but I was in no mood to argue.

I said that I would pay the fine whatever it was.. ya the official fine, no bribe. But then he played his card and I was dejected… I need not bother buying any lottery today. He wanted me to deposit my license and then collect it the next day from the chowki where I could pay the OFFICIAL fine. 75% of the folks would not want to take such pains to be OFFICIAL and that day I was one of them. I asked him what would it take to rub of the incident under the carpet and offered him 100 bucks. He nodded and while I struggled to pull out my wallet which seemed unusually heavy,he made small talk with me inquiring about my residence, place of work, my good name.. etc. Then he said some stuff that they too are forced to take bribes as they too have targets to achieve. And all this while we thought targets are only for corporate guys like us.

I paid and looked up for the nod that would allow me again to pilot my vehicle when the most amazing thing appeared. In went the hand in his pocket and though the 100 disappeared out came quite some 10’s. As I tried to make sense of the situation, the cop calmly counted 5 of them and handed them to me.

Seeing my blank look, the cop explained himself, while the fine was 100 bucks, bribe had a 50% discount going on and hence the balance was being refunded. Then adding a bit a spiritualism, he said that we come empty handed and leave empty handed in this cycle of life and what would he do taking more money than he needed.

I laughed all way back and wondered whether the cop was really that honest to all or was it a case of ‘Me Marathi… Amhi Marathi’.

I just wish that the cop rather uses the money to tutor his kids in ‘Dhirubhai Ambani International School ’ than to drown it on ‘Kingfisher’ strongs.