Harrased by the police

After a long boring week, my friend and i decided to do some driving around the town today, although there isn't much to do in Chennai after 12am, we drove upto ascendas in tharamani bought some cigarettes and decided to go to the beach. The weather was beautiful, and the beach was pretty must deserted except for the stray dogs which were fast asleep. Half way through our cigarettes there was this police car that pulled up beside us, we thought it would be the usual cops screaming out orders to people wanting them to vacate the beach immediately. But I guess these two were quite jobless and wanted to harass someone and found two unsuspecting targets to make fun off, and possibly make some money. They started off by claiming that we were both drunk, and were planning to have sex in the beach (I just couldn't control my laughter!), and then it followed with the usual 'where do u work?', 'whats ur salary' questions and then we were administered the special 'software engineer' treatment. The software people have always been harassed, right from auto drivers, to banks, to real estate guys and landlords and now even the cops find a special sadistic pleasure in belittling us! After various threats ranging from 'night at the lock-up' to 'cancellation of license' we were finally allowed to leave with a warning that venturing out at this time of the night could prove very dangerous, ironically the only trouble we experienced was from the cops themselves!

I'm sure every one us who has ever gone for a night show or a night out at the city, has been harassed by the cops at some time or the other, its quite irritating to think that the very people who are supposed to protect us end up causing us the most trouble. Maybe the city is as dangerous as the cops claim it to be, and they must be given credit for making it a safe place to live in, but most of the cops I have run into do not give this impression, there are mainly 5 of cops that I have come accross

The vasool cop: This guy's sole intention is to take money from you, he'll go through the entire vehicle, its papers, its occupants and find the silliest reason to fine you, its very easy to find this guy, signal has one of them.

The whiny cop: This cop is so pissed with life that he would complain about his problems even to you, and will be very unforgiving with people who appear to be happier of more well-off than him, the only way to escape him is make him believe that your life is more miserable than his and take care that you get off your bike when he's speaking to you, put off your cigarette and not attend calls while he's around

The daddy cop: This guy is so full of advice, you actually tend to like him! He will give you advice about everything under sky, from traffic rules to vehicle maintainance to job security. But can be quite irritating when all this happens in the middle of the night

The honest cop: Well if any of you actually meet one of this kind do let me know

The lady cop: Possibly the most annoying of the lot, like they say 'the female of the species is deadlier than the male'. I've had a lot of trouble with a particular policewoman on old mahabalipuram road, she is the most corrupt, arrogant, power misusing woman I've ever seen (maybe i'm exaggerating...but she's more or less that). I was actually caught for not carrying papers and she expected me to give her my id card and then go home and get the papers. I refused to do it (it was after a looong day of work and I was in no mood to ride all the way home and back) and we were arguing till 4 in the morning, but I was very happy at the end cos she said 'its people like you who make this job miserable' :-)

Well I guess there is nothing much that can be done about these wretched people, except hope to become a very powerful politician, or a rich businessman with lots of contacts, and have your revenge!!!