The forgiveness syndrome- boon or bane?

I recently came across something that I had penned in 2007. I smiled as I read it for I remembered clearly my indignation when it had occurred. The years in-between might have dulled the indignation but not the relevance of the same. Corruption continues to be the bane of our society. Grossly unacceptable, but simply by the virtue of being rampant has unfortunately been pushed to the back of our social consciousness.

 “Make sure you have your seat belt on”, said my husband, just wanting to make sure that we do not flout any rules as we entered Nashik. As a traffic policeman hailed us moments later, I double checked my seat belt. A smile greeted us, we smiled back.

“Going to Shirdi?, he asked. We nodded.

“Jai Sai Baba”,he said.

“Jai Sai”, we echoed back. A well mannered traffic policeman. We were impressed.

“No child?” The friendly banter continued…

“He’s sleeping on the back seat”… So far so good.

“Carry on, carry on…”, he continued. We turned the ignition key but just as the car came to life, he added,

“….after you’ve given me 1000/-,”. We slumped back. Oh! The same boring predictable climax after all, just when we thought we were party to a rare phenomenon, rare at least in India.

I was determined to protest. After all it was not many years back that we had read at school and college that putting up with nonsense was equivalent to creating it.

“What for,”I protested. He turned, and smiled tolerantly as if addressing a retarded child.

“ If I begin to search for reasons, there will be no end to it”, he said and smiled again.

The smile was, by the way, a constant. It reminded me of Nana Patekar in the film “Parinda”. I would have been amused by my creative imagination had I not been sitting in the victim seat. We had by now caught the interest of the other traffic men with him, there was a full team you see, enough to handle( fleece?) the weekend traffic to Shirdi.

“Ok, I will make it easier for you.. I will give you a discount,” he said. Ok! This seemed negotiable! ... “I don’t want a discount, I want a waiver,” I said trying to draw upon my negotiation skills . The smile wavered but eventually held. He seemed to be a smile veteran.

Endless moments later we were on our way to Nashik. Instead of feeling exulted, we were feeling weighed down. This was not right. Agreed it was not a catastrophe, in fact it was something so commonplace that it did not even need the dark of the night or a remote, “no- where- else to go” backdrop to happen. So commonplace that people reading it would wonder why make such a issue out of it , it has happened to all of us…. AND THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT. Something is surely wrong with the world’s largest democracy that breaking of law by people -of- law themselves is so generously acceptable. Surely the “large hearted Indian forgiveness” syndrome has taken on disturbing connotations. Surely the flouting of norms by Indian law providers ought to be in notice of our government which claims to be in the know of master mind secrets of neighbouring countries. Surely something as rampant as above has come to their notice. Then why is nothing done about it. It can only mean two things,

ONE, the government agrees that our law providers are underpaid and hence they have a right to make their own money provided they do it on the sly or that they somehow( read anyhow)ensure that nobody makes a issue out of it. Reminds me of the fable of the pigeon closin, its eyes on seeing the cat, pretending the cat does not exist.

TWO, the common man doesn’t matter. Sadly, I believe it’s more of the latter.

Interestingly, I find that I do not bear a grudge against the policeman. I don’t remember his face even. However I do remember that smile. At least he bothered to smile.

Written in July 2007