INDIA TOGETHER NEWS ABF/STOP
Your hands, so warm
It's bad enough that you can pay bribes to officials who are very willing to take them; bad enough that ill-gotten gains are nearly a birthright today; bad enough that values are to laugh at. But corruption is about more than these.
Corruption breaks down the very rules we live by. Dilip D'Souza remembers his court appearances.
- One evening some years ago, I was arrested along with some 60 others. Our crime: travelling in the ladies' first class compartment in a Bombay suburban train. Let me admit right away: I have nothing convincing to say in my defence. I learned my lesson and I won't do it again. But it was an enlightening experience while it lasted, and on two counts.
First, at the Bombay Central police station, we were given two choices: spend the night in jail, or pay Rs 500 bail and go home. In both cases, we would have to appear in court the next day to pay our fines. Since I didn't have Rs 500 on me, a nearby guardian angel had to bail me out. When I left, every one of my partners in crime was still there. I looked forward to renewing my friendships with them in court.
The next day, I was the only one who turned up. Yes, the sole idiot. While I waited for the judge, a clerk beckoned to me.
"Why have you come here?" he asked in an astonished whisper. "Bas unka haath garam karna tha!" "You should have just warmed their hands!"
You know, as I knew, what that means. The others had all "warmed" some hands and gone home. Was I to feel contrite, angry, righteous or just plain stupid? Whatever, I paid my fine. It was hefty enough that I knew I would never set foot in that compartment again. But there was irony to follow.
A few weeks later I watched another pathetic lot -- from the outside, you bet they looked pathetic -- being rounded up from the first-class ladies' compartment in another train. To my amazement, one of my fellow criminals was among them. Imagine the odds!
But apart from that, whatever he had paid the policemen that first night had clearly not been enough to teach him the lesson I had learned. No doubt he believed that travelling illegally was worth the risk of warming cop hands once in a while.
How much of that warming goes on every day? The thing is, it's bad enough that you can pay bribes to officials who are very willing to take them; bad enough that ill-gotten gains are nearly a birthright today; bad enough that values are to laugh at. But corruption is about more than these. Corruption breaks down the very rules we live by.