Few sips: Behind Bars

Screech!! A sound of a vehicle stopping was heard and as I saw through the iron bars, a tall man with a broad chest and with a mustache that looked like a Harley Davidson 750 cc handle walked in. You may be wondering what iron bars was I looking through. I was locked up at the police station along with 3 other friends of mine for using swords and shot-guns in public. It was around 7.30 in the evening when a couple of friends and myself were working on a photography project that we had to submit as part of our Media course.
Here is the reason why my friends and I were under custody for a night. One of my friends, Mr. Chabdul wrapped a scarf around his face to get a look of a terrorist and another friend of mine Mr. Rahul who naturally had quite a long and dense beard too dressed up like a terrorist. (As if his face was not enough to depict a terrorist). As we were clicking pictures posing as terrorists, we heard the police sirens and just shrugged of our shoulders and continued our work. But after a few seconds we saw a police van heading straight towards us and just before it stopped few policemen jumped off the van with their guns pointing at us. The whole situation became so scary that it automatically made us drop the swords and guns and Chabdul and Rahul removed their scarves and my friend and me shut our cameras off and raised our hands. By this time, the whole campus came to know about the series of events and later we too came to know that one of the residents had informed the police about us. (This happened just a day after the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena attacked the taxi drivers). A couple of other police constables got hold of us and we were pushed in the van and immediately taken to the police station and put behind bars. What a gruesome 30 minutes we had!

Now one of the senior inspectors started to interrogate us by asking our personal details and the reason for carry such hazardous equipment with us and whether we were part of any political banner. We tried explaining him that all we did was pure photography and it was just a college assignment. But he was not willing to take our statements as the final answer. (Common now! who would? Very rare do you have people believing students). He also asked us that which kind of course or college, asks students to use weapons for assignments and who is the one who gave such assignments. We didn’t want to involve any of our professors and wanted to resolve the matters all by our selves (Ya right! As if we were Lord Mountbatten’s generation). The inspector told us that we would have to spend the night in jail and the next morning we would be taken to the court where we would have to justify our reasons. One whole night in jail? Oh my God! What would my parents think of me? Will any girl marry me? What would my friends say? Will the public accept me again in society? What about the nice fish curry mom made that night? These were the questions that came up my mind that night and made me nervous every second.

It was around 9.30 p.m. when my friend Barad gave signals of what I call ‘The Stomach Growling Disease’ universally known as ‘Hunger’. We all were feeling hungry and the biggest question was who would take up the daunting task of asking the inspector for food? We tried flipping a coin but there were four of us, we tried doing ‘eeny meeny mainy moh…’ but that too didn’t work because we forgot those lines.


Finally, Barad took up the challenge and since his mother-tongue is Marathi and it always comes in handy while dealing with government officials in a city like Mumbai. He uttered, “oh saheb sarvana bhuk lagli aahe” (we all are feeling hungry) to which the inspector replied in funny way saying, “Kai re ikde jhunka bakar kendra disto ka tula” (Is this a fast food centre?) Then we too uttered in Hindi that we hadn’t eaten since afternoon and pleaded him to provide some vada pavs (Mumbai’s eternal fast food) and something to drink. He benignly sent a constable and ordered for some food. One of my friends Chabdul was drowsy as hell and his eyes turned red. Just as the food arrived, one of the inspectors saw his crimson-like eyes and asked him, “kya tu nasha kar ke aaya hai? (Have u doped and come?) A stunned silence among all of us and we were scared to death after listening this. We again had to convince him that we don’t involve in such kind of activities and we were just tensed about the series of events that had happened so far. We immediately gobbled up the food and drank the cold drinks and the whole night we were thinking what to do to get out of this place. It was almost 12.30 in the night and we finally made a decision to call our professor who teaches photography and explain him the situation. But he was not in town and we thought that if we call our course coordinator he would get very upset on us. (As it is he is already upset with our whole class. Sigh!)

After a few minutes all of us were feeling sleepy and Chabdul had already fallen fast asleep on the rough floor and Rahul, Barad and I also leaned against the wall and fell asleep. Wack! Tang! Cling! Wack! These were the noises we heard and as we opened our eyes it was already morning and the inspector informed us by striking his lathi on the door indicating that we would be leaving for the court. But finally we decided to call our course coordinator and a couple of other friends, Sharmin and Puyash too, who were also involved in the assignment but were no present on that day. Our coordinator walked in with his palm on his forehead and in his usual high pitch tone that skyrockets the roof saying, “You guys give me trouble inside class as well as outside class”. All we could do is just giggle and at the same time feel sorry for what he has done for us through out our course. He came and spoke to the officials and managed to get us out of the jail. We were all very happy but Barad was very sad as the sword was his and the police had to seize it. Being inside the jail was a totally different experience and on top of that getting bailed out of jail was even better (Ekdum Filmy Ishtyle). God knows what went through the mind of our coordinator at that point of time as it is very difficult to read this persons mind. (I think God too didn’t know).
Overall it was a new but fun experience and later this whole event became a point to talk in college among classmates and teachers too. What a night! Having food in the Jail, trying to convince the inspector and overall, acting like big-shots by trying to solve the matter by ourselves when we had a great person like our course coordinator who finally came and rescued us. This definitely would become a story to tell to all my friends, I thought, as I walked out of the police station and only Barad could do a fine job by narrating this story to our seniors in his ever flamboyant style.