the Long arm

A recent flirtation with the law reminded me of this incident, which happened a few years ago.

This happened when the four of us had gone to madras to participate in Shaastra. Even after our 'capture the flag' event was over (we didn't win any prize - our autonomous robot went phut :( ) - as it was the first time we were participating in such a big event - we were very enthusiastic to try and participate, or at least get a sense of most of the competitions that were taking place.
So on the penultimate day of the event, one of my team-mate, and another friend, a student of iit itself, in whose hostel room we were staying, took a bicycle, and went to roam around.
In iits and all, the security is taken care of by a separate organization - i forget its name - but it is similar to , but not as sophisticated as the BSF or something of that sort. Anyway, it is this organization that makes all the security and traffic related rules inside the campus.
Now, they had this somewhat strange rule, that at one particular junction inside the campus, you couldn't take a simple right turn, but had to go further up , take a u-turn and come back.Even if you were on a cycle, you had to pedal the extra 200 metres. But anyway, most people seemed to follow this.
Now, how this was implemented was that, there was one security guy at the junction, who would walkie-talkie any offender's description to a main security officer who stood in the middle of that road. This security officer would stop the culprit, and charge a modest fine of five rupees.

Now, as my friends were returning via this place, my friend who was riding the cycle,and who knew the rule well enough, deliberately took the right turn, and went ahead, where he was promptly flagged down by the security officer.
Ofcourse, anyone else would pay 5 rupees and push off, but not my friend. As (even now) one of his definitions of "entertainment" is arguing with policemen, he did just that. He hid his purse, pretended he had no money, and started arguing and pleading with the officer to let them go without paying the fine.
May be he would have let them go, until my friend made a comment in malayalam about how the officer would collect all this money, and have a nice drink in the night.

Unfortunately for my friend, the officer knew malayalam very well!.

Thus the officer became very agitated, and my friend's dialogues were aggravating him even further, until at one point they even tried to exchange blows. In fact, I strongly suspect my friend got one or two hits with the lathi, but to this day he doesn't admit it.

Anyway, all this time, myself and my other teammates were in the hostel. Now, as these two guys were supposed to return in an hour, and as it was like three or four hours since they had left, we became a little concerned, infact more curious to find out where they were. So I and one of my friends decided to take a walk to find them.

We were well past them when we heard our names being called , and we turned and walked towards them.

When we reached there, the situation was was that one more security guy had joined the group, and my two friends were being abused and threatened, and their cycle confiscated.

Now my friends didn't have their ID cards with them, and so the security guys were branding them as terrorists and as one said,they 'had them in custody, and they would be presented before the head of security, after which they will be put in jail!, and would be let out only if their parents came in person'.!!

Even though this threat could not have been serious, the security officer who, in my friend's opinion, 'began it all', was in no mood to end it. Each time his anger seemed to subside just a little bit, my friend would pass a sarcastic comment, only to enrage him again.

But fortunately, the other officer was not as bad tempered as the first one, and so I and my other friend were talking to him, urging him to tell the angry officer to leave our friends. We even paid the fine of 5 rupees.

Meanwhile, as we were talking to this other officer, what was my friend doing?
He was talking to certain other people who were also caught, and trying to convince them not to pay the fine and turn against the officer. Fortunately, all these people had some sense not to heed my friend's words, and they all paid the fine and left. But this action from my friend multiplied the security officer's anger many fold. He barked even at me about how we from kerala were trying to make an union at that spot!!

Anyway, our pleading with the other officer soon began to pay off, and he finally talked to the angry officer. After some more pleading and apologies from myself and my other friend (not from the 2 culprits), they agreed to let us go, but only after we gave them our phone numbers (not mine - i didnt have a mobile back then) ,addresses and i even remember showing them our return ticket to trivandrum.

Finally we returned back to the hostel, laughed like hell thinking about what had happened, had some more great fun the next day, at the end of which we boarded the train back home.

Anyway, the incident which prompted me to write about this incident, happened some days ago, when my flat-mate and I were travelling on my bike via JB nagar...