- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 1881 views
"Driving" a hard bargain on a bribe
- Police
- Traffic Violations
- Paid INR 150
I was going by car to my place of work around 11.30 in the morning today. At a red-light close to the ********** mall, I came upon a traffic light that was green but about to turn red. I pushed on the accelerator thinking I would get through. The light was still green when I passed the zebra crossing and had turned yellow when I got to the middle of it. The exultation of having saved a few minutes of my time was short-lived for a policeman happened to be standing smack in the middle of the "chowk", not unlike a modern-day Hercules, determined to stop enough cars to pay for breakfast, lunch + dinner. I stopped the car by the side of the road and was promptly asked to hand over the papers. Upon doing that, the cop just started to walk away with them. Panicking, I followed him and started to argue with him on the "merits" of his decision to stop me. This ensued for some time before he came clean and told me that 2 notes would do. "What?? What two notes??" was my reaction until I realized Rs. 200 was what he was asking. Shocked, my initial reaction was to ask him to write me a challaan and be done with it. But when he insisted on greasing his palms, I had no option but to haggle. Somehow I managed to bring him down to 150. Now one would think that having paid a bribe, I would be accorded the courtesy of having my car papers returned to me in an orderly manner. Not so, not with the UP police. He almost flung them in my face, resulting in the papers flying all over the place, "spilling" onto the highway. Running around to collect them, I created a ********** traffic jam and moved off in a huff. Perfect bad start to an otherwise nice day, eh?