Skip to main content

Sets You on Fire!- A Bangalorean Evening

It's just not my day today, Chandru thought to himself as he swerved the auto heavily to the left. The sharp turn saw the auto temporarily shift all its weight to the wheel on the left. His heart jumped to his throat and his stomach felt like it had been punched. He couldn't afford another repair this month.

The auto had just rebalanced when Chandru spotted trouble. The nets had been thrown out to sea, the fishermen were out to catch their livelihood. A police jeep and a pride of inspectors had placed themselves strategically along the road. It felt to Chandru like the shit had just hit the fan, as he braced himself for the impending attack.

Royola, the cop who made the most off of the delinquents on the roads, grinned ear to ear. His favorite automan had just driven right into the trap. He could not help but have excited spring to his step, as he strutted over to the unfortunate automan.

"Hello hello, where's your uniform?"
"Just about to put it on sir"
"Why don't you already have it on?"
"Just thought I'd put it on while I wait for my passengers sir"
"Which passengers? There's no one here, and you just rolled yourself in"
"Oh, no Sir, just took a quick U turn!"


The aptly named Inspector looked around with a smirk. He'd won, quick thinking Chandru had failed. Time to collect. How much will it be now? Should he add some for the time he was trying to take Chandru's number down for speeding, and Chandru drove over muddy pot hole water in such a manner as to distract the inspector enough to loose him. And maybe some more for parking at the bus stand a few days ago and escaping a fine by convincing his boss that he was merely stopping to take a quick toilet break.. or the other time..

"Thanks for waiting sir!" Royale's thoughts were interrupted, with the sound of the cheery voice of an IT employee. No, this cannot be happening again.
"What do you want madam?" Royale quizzed.
"An auto sir, what else?"

Chandru caught on- who ever this lady was, here was an escape route. "See, I told you I was waiting on a customer," he beamed. Royale felt his grip on his victory slip- NO. This could not happen again.

"Get out of the auto, now, challo.. let's go"

They both marched over to Royale's boss.

"Sir, this fellow didn't have a uniform and he parked in a no parking zone"

"But sir, I was waiting for a passenger and I was in the process of putting on my uniform"

"The passenger just came sir, he's lying"

"That's ok, call her over here,"
commanded the Supervisor.

The now quick heeled cop, rearranged the scene quickly enough to have the IT employee in the fore front of the conversation with Royale's supervisor.

"Where are you going?"
"To Andrew Park Hotel"
"How much is the meter from here to the hotel?"
"Unsure sir..."
"Ok, give Rs 100 now to me, pay the driver's fine.I'm sure it will be more than that..we haven't asked him yet but he will say he doesn't have money,"
he barked.

Chandru creased his forehead in worry. He needed all the money he could get, he hadn't paid rent in months for the auto and the owner was threatening to take it away if all of it couldn't be paid in the next few days. And with the repairs on the auto the last few days.....

"I don't have money, Inspector"
"Big company and all and you have no cash?"
"I needed to withdraw"
"Show me your purse"
"Here you go Inspector, I have coins worth 20 bucks if you want"
she said handing over a palm full of coins.

The inspector looked over. Royale looked, it wasn't much, but it was something. Chandru looked at the palmfull, and yes, he needed that too...

The inspector contemplated.. how much was his dignity worth? Ha! Atleast more than this, he thought to himself and with a brush of his hand, he'd dismissed the incident as an unfortunate memory.

Royale's face fell, no appeals- this was yet another epic fail.

Chandru looked over to his saviour woman, and signalled her in.He grinned ear to ear.. he'd won, but more importantly, he didn't loose.

"Madam, thank you madam" he said with sincere gratitude.

"That's ok, they're here every day trying to scrounge money off. Quick thinking, you had to shout out that excuse loud enough for me to help you!" said the IT lady, before getting distracted by the sound of her phone ringing.

Chandru's day had just turned into something else!

Comments

Nice story.

I hope everyone is as helpful as this lady.

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrations

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 16 ; the sixteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . It was a hard ground that felt like sand paper. When he started his journey, it was the soles of his feet that were in contact with the ground, but now as he pulled himself closer to the station, it was his whole body. His elbows were scraped, bloody and fresh scab peeled bled out to leave a trail of red on the wicked hot dusty ground of pain and suffering. All around him slow moving bodies crawled towards the direction of hope, all along leaving patterns of blood, sweat, skin and pus. These bodies had seen civil wars, droughts, genocide and lived to tell a tale of a people who now belonged to a nation listed as one of the poorest countries in the world. This is now, but before the list, was a struggle of massive proportions, under reported and quietly hidden

Escape

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 10 ; the tenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . The Temple Widow A narrow dirt path, generously peppered with tiny pebbles, tiny miniatures of their gargantuan ancestors, leads to a bridge. It hangs, rickety and old. Old but not well used, old like abandoned and not frequently used. The bridge hangs low over a small stream that slowly gurgles past, happy unlike those that visit the place. The bridge leads to a temple. It is not very big, only perhaps the size of a small hut and at the most the size of an average temple hall. The temple has no deity; the temple has no one corner that doesn’t look like the other. It is clean, well swept, and empty. It has no furniture, and excepting a series of well spaced out windows, the walls remains uninterrupted. She stumbles in, the lady. She is not very tal

Time Travel

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 8 ; the eighth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . I haven't got the memory of a vedic tantric. Neither do I ever claim to remember all. All I know is what I know, question my memory if you want to. I don't ask you to remember, I don't ask you to believe. In fact, I'm not asking you for anything at all. It is your choice to be here, to read this. So no, I don't owe you a favor. I happened to chance upon a watch, on one of my travels. Turning the dials of such a watch, could transport you to the past, to the future, to any time. But time, my friend, is not how you think it is. It is not a straight line, and you cannot just by chance hop into the world of dinosaurs and wooden weapons. It is a series of transparencies, like films of clean sheets of paper laid on top of each other. You look from above