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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 24, Dated 16 June 2012 |
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| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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PERSONAL HISTORIES |
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A series on true experiences
ACCIDENTAL TERRORIST
‘The officer bundled me into an auto and asked me to pay for it’
By Ravi Guria
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Illustrations: Rishabh Arora |
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I WAS tired and hungry. The day at the office had been bizarre. The journey from Andheri to Malad in a crowded train wasn’t ideal either. I was happy to see the back of the day. Or so I thought.
I let myself in to an empty house, put two eggs to boil in a kettle and prepared myself for a refreshing bath. The bell rang. I opened the door nonchalantly, expecting my flatmate, Sandeep. Instead, a group of men hustled their way in. One caught me by arm, as the rest began to ransack the house. One of them came out of the kitchen with the kettle, and placed it on the floor. “What is this?” he asked. “Eggs,” I replied. “For what?” he inquired. “Dinner.” I was so zapped by the frenzy that I forgot I was being held captive in my own home by strangers. He sniffed the eggs and with much caution, broke one open. They were still raw.
I turned to the man holding my arm and asked, “What’s going on?” “We are searching your house,” he replied with disdain. “But why?” I ventured, nervously. “We are looking for bombs.” “Who are you?” it finally occurred to me to ask. “Police! Can’t you see?” he retorted, taking umbrage at my naïveté. How could I have known? None of them wore customary khakhi. They were even stinking of alcohol. By this time a crowd had gathered outside my flat. The association president of our building stood meekly by. “What’s going on, sir?” I addressed myself to him. “There was an explosion in your house in the afternoon,” he informed me. “Explosion? Here?” Shockwaves travelled through my body but as I looked around, there was hardly anything out of place. “We couldn’t find anything,” an officer announced and led the team out of my flat.
The police officer holding me eased his grip. “You will have to come with us to the police station,” he ordered. I tried to put up a brave front. “Police station? For what? Everybody knows me in this building.” All the familiar faces from the neighbouring flats looked at me with a dead pan expression. “They only have lodged a complaint against you,” he said. I knew pretty much everybody on the premises through glances, greetings and direct conversations. But no one spoke for me. I was flabbergasted. “I work as a director with one of the most famous programmes on Doordarshan,” I tried to convince the officer, but he was in no mood to relent. “What about the explosion?” he questioned. “I have no idea. I wasn’t even home in the afternoon”, I replied. “Where is your roommate?” he asked. “He must be in his office. He works with Channel [V],” I answered. “You’ll have to wait in the police station till your partner returns,” was his verdict.
The police officer bundled me into an auto-rickshaw for a short distance ride to the station, and even made me pay for it. Mobiles were not mundane then and I was not allowed to use the landline. I waited in the police station for two hours before Sandeep finally arrived with a female journalist friend. He had gone to our flat first where he was informed of my predicament. The journalist simply barged into the station and started yelling at the half-drunk policewalas. I hastily tried to caution her against annoying them lest they actually throw me behind bars. But she was like a raging tornado and seemed to know her way around cops in general. The policemen were dumbfounded. She grabbed my hand and walked straight out of the police station. And just as quickly as I’d been apprehended, I was free, with some speedy lessons learned: a) when you are picked up by police, be ready to pay for your own transportation; b) don’t underestimate the sheer, raw power of a woman journalist; and c) like the song says, ‘everybody needs good neighbours’.
Sandeep later told me that his aerosol deodorant bottle had burst with such a loud bang it damaged the window.
Ravi Guria is 38. He is an independent filmmaker now based in Delhi.
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