Cop and Me

It is curious that I had a dream that I was caught by police for rash and negligent driving. I cannot even ride a bicycle leave alone a two wheeler or afford a four wheeler or even if I bought a four wheeler afford the petrol.In dream I was riding the moped of my brother. It was registered in Gujarat and even though some years had gone by he did not transfer it to his new place of residence. It was not worth it and he rode it just in and around the village when he went to get a pack of cigarette or like. Needless to say that I have no license  to drive  any of those mechanical contraptions. But in my dream it did not bother me when I started riding my brother's moped. I was going very fast that at a signal I could not manage to brake and stop it and it shot forward and crashed into the traffic before it stopped. There was not much damage for either to my moped, I mean my brothers moped, nor to the two vehicles I crashed into. One of them was an auto rikshaw. I was sort of half way middle of the road and stopped there. The auto rikshaw and other vehicle went away without bothering me. I was sort of relieved that there was no trouble due to my negligence. Then I looked back and saw that a cop was standing at the corner and was busy writing on his note book. I got panicked. My fear was two fold. One thing that I did not have a licence and the vehicle was registered in Guarat. How to solve this problem? I racked my brain to no avail. Meanwhile I pushed the moped towards the cop. He just gave me a casual look and started filling up the note book. After a gap of some ten seconds I made a perfunctory cough to attract his attention. He obliged me. He looked at me with raised eyebrows. I came to the point directly and told  ' I made a small accident'. He told 'Yes I saw it'. But stopped at that and went busy with his book and pen.

To me he was one of the greatest writers. After waiting for another half minute I made my cough once again. Due to practice I had perfected the art of coughing. ' Sir, the accident, the case' I stopped at that. In such circumstances I thought telegraphic language is the best. He stopped his writing and gave me blank look for moment and then said ' You jumped the Red and made an accident and crashed to the vehicles'. I admitted that in fact I did and added ' Is it necessary to charge a case. Though I crashed the vehicles were not damaged and no injury to any one'. He countered ' That is not the point. You broke law and we will have to take up'. I scratched my head gave all indications of being one of the humblest of all human beings who jumped red signal. Even Uriah Heep had been present would have taken a lesson or  two in humility and obsequiousness. 'Is there no other way?' I asked looking into my pocket. 'Hmm' He gave a response. I immediately put my pocket and lifted some pieces of papers and hundred rupee note and a fifty rupee note which was the only money I had at that time. He gave me a look of disdain expressed his look in aural form with a grunt. As he knew that I could not have deciphered his look and grunt he translated those to verbal form 'What, it won't get me a breakfast even'!  I explained that that was all the wealth I possessed at that time. I will have to go home for more. Then our haggling started. Basically I have no experience in haggling. But after accompanying my wife when she went to purchase vegetables  I had some fundamentals. That is to begin with always halve the quoted price and then proceed slowly up while your opponent comes down slowly till you meet at a point and fix the price at that. I employed this tactic and finally we fixed it at 2000 rupees.
 It was decided we will go to my house in the police jeep for the cash. I told him that I don't have cash and asked whether he can take it by cheque which stoutly refused to. So far the whole conversation was going in Hindi. When everything was settled to the satisfaction of both parties I told him in English 
'Okay let us go'. Immediately the cop turned red and started to abuse me. In Hindi ofcourse. You are English and you want to do this. No no I will charge you. My entreaties did nothing to calm down his temper. And to add to discomfort confuse things further the auto rikshaw came to the spot and the driver jumped out and accosted me. He shouted 'You have to pay me. My auto is damaged'. I meekly said, that it looked perfectly okay. He immediately pointed his hand at the auto and 'Look'. I looked but could not see anything in particular and told him so. He dragged me nearer to the auto and pushed my head down and asked to look. I saw a hairline scratch. 'Yes there is a very thin scratch' I told him. He forcefully turned my head to another place and there also saw a small scratch. I told him that okay I will give 200 rupees for painting. He gave me a look as if I am some creature from Mars and told '200 rupees'? I asked him how much he wanted. Instead of giving me a quote for the damages he fished out a pocket book from his pocket and opened a page and put a finger somewhere and asked me to look. I saw it was a page of a calendar and he had put his finger at the date 10 on it. I could not believe. 'WHAT' I asked. He told plainly that he wanted 10 thousand as damages. I could not believe him. But my worry was will not the cop also raise his demand to match with that of the auto man.
 I looked up at the cop and found that he too was dumb-struck probably this atrocious demand. Things had come to this stage and I did not have any ready solution to this predicament I had got in. I thought it better go home and try to sort it out. I told the cop so. He called the jeep which was standing a bit away. It came near us. When I looked I found that the driver was just like the driver we had in our office. In fact I thought it was none other than our office driver. We all got in including the auto driver. Inside the jeep I just touched on the back of the driver and called him by the name of our office driver. He turned and looked at me in surprise. In fact it was he only. ' Oh Sab how are you here'? I gave him a short history of my recent adventures. He stopped the jeep and started to plead my case to the cop. Finally it was agreed that we all we go to my house and will have a small party and finish the whole affair at that . So went onward to my house and I was busy talking with the driver or should I call him my saviour? Since we were too busy talking I missed to instruct the driver to take the proper turn. I shouted ' Oh you missed the lane go back and turn right'. 
This was too loud and my wife woke up and asked me what happened. I told her that it was alright. I saw one dream and that it was good that she woke me up. Otherwise I don't know what else was there in store. 
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