Around 3 decades back, when we were in Higher Secondary, myself and 2 of my classmates were returning from a movie during evening hours in 2 bicycles. At a traffic signal, one of my classmate stopped his bicycle on 'stop line'. When the signal cleared and we moved, a traffic policeman came and caught our cycles and asked to come to nearest police station which was just few feet away from the signal point. We went there and requested him to return our cycles' keys. He gave the keys to a Head constable and started giving us lectures about honesty and integrity in foreign countries. He quoted an example that in Singapore there are several shops wherein you can carry your own basket of goods to the billing counter (That concept was not introduced in India, then!) and people over there never steal,etc., Finally, after preaching/lecturing for about 1/2 hour, he relieved us to collect the keys from Head constable after paying Rs. 5/- for each cycle. I reminded him politely that only one cycle was stopped over the 'stop line' and my cycle was within the stop limit. He said 'no argument'. We paid after accumulating all the coins we had with us (that time a movie ticket in an AC theater costs only Rs. 2.90, so we three lost a movie's cost to the Honest policemen!).
While returning home, I promised to my classmates that if I ever write a book, I will surely mention this incident at the first page dedicating to the particular policemen. That time there were no Blogs, hence, I could not swear on it!
After the incident, we made it a point to carry minimum Rs. 5/- with us all the time!!
So emboldened with the system, we started moving in one cycle (called 'triples'). Twice we were caught by the police. Once a policeman known to my classmate left us with a warning (Next day he went to his father's shop and narrated our misadventure and collect Rs. 2/-!!!). Second time, we couldn't notice a police station and a Sentry got so annoyed that 'how dare you people ride triples in front of a police station?' (Later we learnt that he cannot leave his post and cannot carry out policing on street!) and removed air from our cycle's tyres (both wheels, of course!, we were lucky that he didn't throw the 'mouth' of the tube!)
Still the situation in Indian Roads are same, except for the Bicycle!!
While returning home, I promised to my classmates that if I ever write a book, I will surely mention this incident at the first page dedicating to the particular policemen. That time there were no Blogs, hence, I could not swear on it!
After the incident, we made it a point to carry minimum Rs. 5/- with us all the time!!
So emboldened with the system, we started moving in one cycle (called 'triples'). Twice we were caught by the police. Once a policeman known to my classmate left us with a warning (Next day he went to his father's shop and narrated our misadventure and collect Rs. 2/-!!!). Second time, we couldn't notice a police station and a Sentry got so annoyed that 'how dare you people ride triples in front of a police station?' (Later we learnt that he cannot leave his post and cannot carry out policing on street!) and removed air from our cycle's tyres (both wheels, of course!, we were lucky that he didn't throw the 'mouth' of the tube!)
Still the situation in Indian Roads are same, except for the Bicycle!!
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