Opinion
|
|
|
| | Terror Attack..! | | | Yesterday I spent the most part of the morning outside the US Embassy, waiting for my daughter to get her visa to visit the US. Most of the people who were waiting slowly made themselves comfortable, wherever they were, sitting on wall or railing and watching the gates anxiously to see whether it was their son, daughter or spouse coming out, either with grim face or a grin on their face, depending what the visa officer inside had done with their application.
I noticed quite a few were from other cities, and as they came out a dozen auto-rickshaw drivers surrounded them beckoning them to their vehicle. I then noticed that after they got in, the rickshaw didn’t speed away as happens in this busy city, but a small conversation took place. Having nothing better to do I sauntered across:
“Two hundred rupees!” said the rickshawallah to the passenger.
:But the station is just round the corner!”
“Maybe but it is fixed rate!”
“But I thought Mumbai rickshaws go by the meter!”
I walked up to the driver and asked him to put down the meter.
“Why should I?” he asked me defiantly.
“I will report you to the police!” I said, pointing to at least two dozen men in khaki who were standing outside the embassy gates.
“Go ahead,” grinned the rickshaw wallah, “Do what you want!”
I walked across to where the police were, they were drinking tea and some enjoying a game of cards, “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Guarding the white sahibs inside from a terrorist attack!”
“What about guarding your brown sahibs from a terrorist attack?”
“Where is the attack?”
“Across the road!”
“We can’t see anything!”
“Come with me,” I said and two cops rather unwillingly followed.
“See these rickshaw drivers,” I said, “they are cheating the public!”
“But where is the terrorist attack?”
“Can’t you see it?”
“No!”
“That,” I said quietly, “is the biggest terror our country is facing. The terror of corruption! Stop these fellows and you have stopped an attack!”
I heard the auto-men laugh as the two policemen walked back to their colleagues and picked up their playing cards. I went back and sat on the little space at the bottom of the wall, and opened my umbrella as a steady drizzle started. It seemed as if the delayed monsoon was weeping for a country reeling under an attack, bigger than all the bomb blasts, shootouts and suicide squads rolled in one.
“Two and fifty rupees,” said the rickshaw man, now even bolder in his charging as his friend in khaki winked at him, from across the road..!
bobsbanter@gmail.com |
|
|
|
|
Comment on this Story |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|