Pune Diary - Day Four

Sunday began very early with about 3 hours of sleep behind me and previous night's pleasures still fresh in the mind. After a violent challenging of my personal bests at getting ready and making a lame attempt at looking presentable at a traditional Hindu wedding, I was off in an auto to Srikrishna temple at Nigdi which is on the outskirts of Pune.

I have had a long history of experiences with autorickshaws – some amusing, some disgusting, but all of them anecdotal nevertheless. This one was another addition to the list. The autodriver named Pramod was a spirited no-nonsense ghati (to be used as NNG in all future references) who settled the terms of the trip quickly and then we both began talking. First, he thought I was a Muslim from UP, first due to my Hindi and second due to my beard and the dress that I wore on that day, complete with jootis! Then we got discussing about Sindhis in Pune, who seemed to be a pretty unpopular lot, due to their haggling with autodrivers. This was followed by some details of do number ka dhandha that is done in places like Pimpri (what a name!) Then we discussed his family and his brother who is also a driver. The brother is apparently the favourite driver of one Christian auntie in Pune. Auntie refuses to board any other auto, even if she has to go out and buy just a drumstick! We discussed the things to buy in Pune and the ones that I had already bought. I had missed out Chivda from Laxmi Narayan… Then he regaled me with stories of the armyman who had bought 140 kg of Chivda for his brothers at the border and couldn’t find a rick to ferry him to the Cantonment. And then there was the Pakistani woman who came to meet her family after decades and what was the first thing she carried back - You guessed it ! Chivda from Laxmi Narayan. Since I hadn’t managed to get Shrewsbury cookies from Kayani, we went to the place only to find it closed on Sunday. With a heavy heart, I decided to eschew the chivda to the obvious disappointment of Pramod and proceeded to the station where I had still not managed to get a confirmed berth. And wait, I forgot about the marriage.

Mallu marriages are notoriously simple and brisk affairs. If you went to have some coffee etc, you could have missed the muhurat – That brisk! My friend and her fiancé were married off in a cute ceremony before which we had upma and what else, but a banana – You wouldn’t want cries of sacrilege at a wedding, would you?!

But the best part of the day was yet to come. While I kept hovering around the TCO's office for a confirmed berth (which incidentally I never got) I met this guy from Bangalore who had lost his bag and luggage with his credit card, ATM card, etc on his way to Bangalore and had been offloaded from the Mumbai train to Coimbatore the previous night! He took care of my luggage while I went around the station.

While I was on my 3rd or 4th such trip to the TCO's office, someone suddenly grabbed my cellphone, said CRIME BRANCH and shoved an ID in my face. Two moustachioed guys – one trim and the other fat, the fat one checked my phone, while I was still recovering from the shock. Both kept glaring at me, the trim guy doing most of the glaring, while the fat one browsed through my messages. I wanted to tell him that you can’t find pics in text messages, but then thought better. Then he looked through sound files while adding that people hide such stuff in vague folders, deny the existence of anything on their phones and squirm when eventually something is found. Then they asked where I had come from, where I had stayed, where I was going.

CB: Aapke phone me kuch hai?! (Is there anything on your phone?!)
Me: Kuch kya ?! (Anything what?!)
CB: Kuch sex, etc.. (Sex etc)
Me: hehehe. NO!
CB: Let us see…
…
…
…
Me: (much later) I am not the kind of guy who keeps such stuff.
CB: We will see about that
CB: 5 years in prison. You know that
Me: That is when I get caught. (Actually that is when I get proven guilty. Anyways, I was not going to spend my time arguing legalities…)

CB: (much much later, after finding nothing) Thanks
Me: You know this is quite interesting. Had only seen and heard of you guys in the movies. Now it is happening to me! (Shake hands and we part)

I know that some of this could have been avoided if I had asked whether they had a warrant to search, but I thought better than to risk anything else than what might have been a routine search. And one of the two guys had mumbled something sound like "Can we search?" after one of them had begun browsing through the phone. And I had replied in the affirmative. Also while they were certainly not courteous, they were not vulgar or ill mannered unlike a corrupt policeman I met while in Noida. They did their job and left with a smile. I would rather be a gruff, efficient policeman than a smiling, corrupt one. And there was never a hint of any underhandedness to the entire episode. Just some uneasiness on my part, due to the suddenness.

And I had thought all my excitement in Pune was over!
Phew!