It was Saturday


Saturday – the first day of this weekend was one of the most eventful days of my life when I felt almost all states of emotions be it happy, exciting, sad and what not.

The day began with opening my eyes while Ab Tak Chhappan – the cop movie, being played on TV. At that time, I had no idea that I was going to meet number of cops on that day. Anuj had gone to office as he is leaving for China on Monday and he had to complete few formalities. He came late in night. So it was I and Pankaj who spent rest of the day together. After brunch, we had plan to get our bikes serviced and so we both took our bikes. First Pankaj gave his bike on TVS service station. Then we went to Hero Honda service station where we found that still a month or so was pending for service of my bike. Then we came back to home. On the way, we drank sugarcane juice – it is after about 1 and a half year when I tasted it here in GGN. In eve., we took Pankaj’s bike, then went to market. We were enjoying our time out there when Pankaj got call from Aneesh aka Bond asking if we are interested in going for live concert of Strings at IIPM, Chhatarpur and we both got ready. I was excited that I was going for live concert after long time. Last time, it was of Malkit Singh at university. Pankaj was going for first time to any live concert. We were there at Kanav’s home after half an hour and then we headed for IIPM at 1900. Once we thought of getting helmets from our home but then idea was dropped considering the time limit although we knew that police is standing at GGN-DLI border but we thought of taking risk. We were total ten number riding on 5 bikes – I, Pankaj, Kanav, Bond, Dhami, Rajat, Gulati, Dharamveer – Dhami’s brother, Gurpreet – all s/w engineers working at CE, Siemens, TCS, flextronics and Rahul Sabbharwal – IIMA passout of this year & Kanav’s classmate (he is going to join Lehman Brothers, New York next month). It was about 25 km ride and we were not stopped at border. Just after we entered in IIPM campus, gates were closed because of shortage of parking. There was a dance competition already going on. We had some food and then started the concert. Starting songs were slow, then they were bit faster but you know, Strings are notorious for not singing peppy numbers. So it wasn’t that good vicinity to dance to the fullest. They sang few fast Punjabi numbers and some disco songs too and those guys were interactin a lot with students. It was lotta fun out there.

Show ended at about 2330 and then when we were about to get out of gate, there was no space to move. Vehicles were standing in heavy traffic because of parking outside IIPM. We managed to get out of that crowd anyhow by displacing cars, making way in small distances etc. etc. and on the way, we saw that people had brought stuck cars on wrong side because of traffic on the other side, jamming all the way – O darling, ye hai India! It took us about half an hour to get out of that herd.

But problems had just started. We were stopped at border to show our bike docs etc. I had put helmet but other 2 bikers were not having them and hence, they were stopped and were asked to hand over the Registration etc. After imploring for some time, and handling Rs. 100 to those corrupt ppl, we were allowed to pass. That was big day for those cops.

Then we planned to have dinner at Alcatel food court and there we bunch of guys entered into Ladies toilet by mistake – it was big embarrassing moment when we were asked by supervisor of there to come out – actually the water cooler was just near to Ladies rest room and all of us, went into there after having water to fresh up. And the most annoyed guy was Rahul when he was called up and he thought that we had played prank with him.

Alcatel food court was closing, so we headed for Convergys call center at 01.00 and had dinner out there. Then we came back to Kanav’s home. Just after we left their place, we were stopped by cops standing at gate but I got remembered the borde incident, so I asked Pankaj to run from there and I speeded up. But Pankaj stopped and because he was threatned to take to police station, I had to come back when I was about 3-4 kms away from that place. And what I had thought, we had to get away by giving Rs. 200 to that constable because Pankaj was having all the docs except pollution certificate and I had run away – although they weren’t from traffic police but it was their right to check vehicles for all docs – isn’t that funny? This is the other face of India where you are charged on spot for your protection. Then you understand, why do people don’t want to pay taxes in India!

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