Showing posts with label IIFL Wealth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIFL Wealth. Show all posts

Tuesday 16 August 2016

How to get locked up inside a jail in Mumbai

If the litterateurs had to come up with an elegant synonym for 'anomaly', they could very well anoint it as 'Mumbai'.  When I first read in the newspapers that Mukesh Ambani was constructing Antilia, a 27-storey residence at Altamount Road, Mumbai, I found it amusing -- this city has some of the world's biggest slums, and now she is hosting the most expensive residential house on the planet! Mumbai is the pulse point of India's financial, political, religious, and even fashion trends.


Zara hatke, zara bachke, ye hai Bombay meri jaan – "Be alert, be street wise, this is Bombay, my love". This famous yesteryear song of Hindi cinema sums up the spirit of Mumbai. I showed this to the co-founder of ChessBase, Frederic Friedel, who remarked: start the video at your own peril – you will not be able to get the song out of your head for hours – or days.

The maximum city. See some stunning pictures of Mumbai here: Raskalov-vit Journal

On January 28, 2016, IIFL Wealth, in association with the Indian Chess School, organised a beautiful chess tournament in Bombay. It was hosted in the suburb of Bandra in Mumbai and I was in the mood to show my friends the moods of this bustling part of the maximum city. Therefore, I made a pitstop at the Bandra Railway station on my way to attend the press conference as the tournament's official photographer.

Karimji has been selling books at this very spot at the entrance to the Bandra station since 1970! Sometimes, at night, he just folds the whole paraphernalia up and goes to sleep at the same spot.

Just beside Mr Karim's book stall is this place where you can eat some lip smacking samosas

Bandra is one of the busiest railway stations in Mumbai...

And it was at this point that a police constable got hold of me and asked why was I taking pictures. I answered truthfully about the same -- that I am a journo and I work for... -- he did not want to hear any more. He replied that photography is not allowed in railway stations and asked if I have permits.

'But so many people keep taking pictures all the time on cell phones and what not!'.

'No mister. Those are for personal consumption on cell phones -- you are clearly taking pictures to highlight the crowd here, and you cannot do that without permits.'

'Fine, I will delete them. Please let me go.'

'Chalo thane!' (You have to come to the police station!)

And therefore, I was unceremoniously dragged to a Railway Police Force station and was made to stand in front of some serious looking guy who was a superior official.

The boss was adamant. 'No! I don't want to hear any of your stories! A charge sheet shall be filed and you have to answer in court,' he boomed.

'But sir, nowhere in this station has it been mentioned that photography is not allowed...'

'Shut up! Has it been mentioned anywhere that you cannot kill people?'

With nothing suitable to counter, I resigned myself to being charge sheeted (the minor one for petty offences). Then, I was actually put behind bars with some other people who were caught crossing railway tracks or pissing on the bushes near them.

Now, this was a particularly new experience for me, and to be honest, I found the whole thing funny -- the reason I wasn't worried too much is because a constable told me that it is a question of just appearing in the petty matters court and paying a fine.

After an hour of waiting they took me, along with some forty other 'criminals', to the petty matters court at Andheri in a local train. We were actually divided into batches of five, each assigned to a junior constable, as we travelled from Bandra to Andheri. We got chatting with the constable, who originally hailed from Uttar Pradesh.

'So, how did you happen to join the police?'

'Actually, what happened is that I was once caught by the railway police in my village for crossing a railway track! I thought joining the police might be a good option. I gave the exams and here I am.'

Amazing.

The petty matters court was quite understandably busy, with a sea of blacks (lawyers), petty offenders and constables waiting for their turns. We went in quite effortlessly, as this seemed to be a routine matter for the officials there. We were made to stand before a judge in a special 'Railway Court' and probed about our respective offences. I was asked if I admit to have committed the offence, and I sighed a big audible 'yes'.

I was let off after paying a Rs. 500 fine to the court. I called my colleague Shubham Kumthekar who carried the blazers and shoes to the venue of the press conference, where I changed and got down to work.

That is Mr Karan Bhagat, co-founder of IIFL Wealth, speaking while Praful Zaveri of Indian Chess School looks on.

Ironically, the pictures that got me inside the jail in the first place were not even deleted or asked to be deleted! So much for Indian policing.