Skip to main content

Teacher’s Day Gift


Riding around in Delhi on a rickety scooter is one of my few hobbies.  It gives me a feel of earthiness, a feeling that I am a nobody amidst the costly cars that fly by me.  It makes me feel humble, arrogant as I am.  It helps me to check my dreams.  It roots me in reality, the harsh reality that I like to confront honestly.

A traffic policeman stopped me today.  I took off my helmet with a smile that comes rather artificially to me these days.

“I’ve broken the law, you can punish me,” I said.  I think the smile had not vanished from my cheeks.  

I had jumped a red light.  I had not intended it.  My scooter got stuck on the gravel and the lights turned red before I could cross the range.  This was the first time that I was ever caught in my 12 years of hobbying in Delhi by the omnipresent traffic police of Delhi. 

“License?” asked the policeman.

I handed him my licence.

“... school ...,” he read it aloud for the benefit of his senior officer who was standing nearby.  “What do you do in ... school?” 

“Teacher,” I said as I pulled out a hundred rupee  note from my wallet which was the penalty for jumping the traffic signal. 

“Teacher?”  he asked as if he had expected the answer “peon” or “sweeper” or ...

“Will you please accept the fine here instead of sending me to the court?”  I asked.  “I have no time to go to the court to pay the fine.”  I requested.

“Half here and half in the court,” said the officer who had not spoken so far.  “Isn’t today the teacher’s day?”  he asked. 

“Yes,” I said.  I was a little surprised that the Delhi police was aware of something called teacher’s day. 

“How can I challan a teacher on the teacher’s day?”  He asked. 

I didn’t know what to answer.  The hundred rupee note was still in  my hand and the policeman wasn’t even looking at it. 

“Go!” said the officer.  

“An interesting teacher’s day gift,” I thought as I kicked on the engine of my old pal.


PSThis is not fiction at all.  Everything is as it happened really. I’m back to reality. No more short stories.  They've been censored.  Except historical fiction.   




Comments

  1. Very interesting gift Tomichan Sir :) Really nice that a traffic police officer knows about teachers day, may be his kid(s) in school :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're right, probably his kid(s) had to contribute something for the day :)

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. In fact, I was touched by the way he spoke to and dealt with me. He was a thorough gentleman who seemed to have been thoroughly confused by my Hindi (overloaded with English words). He even made a slight bow to me as I thanked him.

      Delete
  3. Indeed, it was a pleasant surprise for me. Maybe I should change my prejudice about the Delhi police :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I guess it was your first instance that you about to get fined for breaking the law .. and you might be the lucky first person who was let off by a traffic police in Delhi ! this should be news on the newspapers ... lolz !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It could be newsworthy, you know. I had quite a different image of Delhi Police until this happened to me. Then, again, this could be just an exceptional episode.

      Delete
  5. Now I guess good deed for one day..And I am happy that they know the importance of Teachers and Teachers Day..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There may be some policemen who respect teachers, who knows?

      Delete
  6. Good.. humanity still alive in Police persons..

    ReplyDelete
  7. Good that Delhi COP recognized you. Happy teachers day. Keep unlearning.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Interesting anecdote.Both my parents being teachers I understand the respect they get. Still some people reach out to me on FB asking me, 'are you gopinathan sir's son?'
    Thank you for sharing

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Perhaps, teachers get more respect outside their schools than inside :)

      Delete
  9. This is so wonderful! Great respect to a Teacher!
    Wish the Respect would be on all days...not specifically just for- Teacher's Day!
    As that's unlikely, either be careful to not flout traffic-rules or save the Rs 100! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This was my first experience of the sort, Anita. I'm a very cautious and law-abiding rider. So the police don't bother about me at all.

      Delete
  10. Happy Teachers day! Only goes to show how deeply gurus are still respected...there might still be hope left somewhere in our society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know, Aditi, if mine was a unique or rare experience. Do you think most policemen would have done the same thing? I don't know since I have no personal experience in the matter. But I don't hear people speak highly of the police.

      Delete
  11. Very nice Read, a G+ for ur post. . :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lovely post! It really does feel good :) Dinno policemen in India were good too! :P Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was an experience with a difference for me too, Bushra.

      Delete
  13. An Interesting Teacher's Day gift.. !! Nicely written :)

    But remember you've broken the rule :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I had not broken the law I wouldn't have had this experience :)

      Delete
  14. Sir first thing that you wrote it very well as you always do I mean it seems like it was just happening in front of me
    Second congrats for your gift otherwise they don't leave anyone
    And sir how's mam and sawan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you think my smile is becoming magical or something? :)

      We are fine, Abhishek. Doing fabulously well!

      Delete
  15. Sir first thing that you wrote it very well as you always do I mean it seems like it was just happening in front of me
    Second congrats for your gift otherwise they don't leave anyone
    And sir how's mam and sawan

    ReplyDelete
  16. Wonderful experience for a teacher on teacher's day :) Indeed Happy Teacher's Day Sir!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Anil. Even a cop can make your day memorable.

      Delete
  17. What a wonderful thing to happen! need to share with friends..
    came from indiblogger and glad i did!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you came here, Vinaya. Wish you many returns! :)

      Delete
  18. More than the teacher's day .. it is the teacher's intellect which worked :) the promptness of taking out the fine .. the ever selling marketing tool a smile .. and the white collar profession :) .. a pleasant persona(as much I have understood about you through your DP and your awesome posts :) ) and the catalyst Teacher's Day ..
    Belated but from the heart...Happy Teacher's Day Respected Sir :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jack, I think you are a dangerous person. You understand too much.

      And thanks from my heart for the wishes.

      Delete
  19. First and foremost wish you a happy teachers day sir. This profession has a lot of respect in it and I am more than pleased to see hard core corrupt people like our Indian cops not accept money and let you go. Maybe there is actually a ray of hope for our country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm a bit surprised by the no. of comments speaking about the cops' ability or non-ability, corruption/non-corruption... For me every experience is a first experience. And I loved it.

      Delete
  20. ha! these cops I tell you always upto something strange. Well as long as you got the benefit! And why have the stories been censored? Something happened?

    Richa

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Conditions applied, Richa. I can tell you about it later some time.

      Delete
  21. That must have been a surprise ! :)
    Happy Teachers Day (Belated)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hmmm...For a change, positive experience on the hands of Delhi police.

    PS: Why no fiction? I love reading your fiction. :)

    ReplyDelete
  23. We are thankful to you personally intended for providing the know-how about computers the actual trainer’S twenty-four hours. It along tutor’ersus twenty-four hours is usually really motivating and is particularly useful for myself with arranging my own lecturers evening lecture.
    Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thank you so much for this very Informative post. You can also check our blog :
    Customised teacher’s day greeting card

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Don Bosco

Don Bosco (16 Aug 1815 - 31 Jan 1888) In Catholic parlance, which flows through my veins in spite of myself, today is the Feast of Don Bosco. My life was both made and unmade by Don Bosco institutions. Any great person can make or break people because of his followers. Religious institutions are the best examples. I’m presenting below an extract from my forthcoming book titled Autumn Shadows to celebrate the Feast of Don Bosco in my own way which is obviously very different from how it is celebrated in his institutions today. Do I feel nostalgic about the Feast? Not at all. I feel relieved. That’s why this celebration. The extract follows. Don Bosco, as Saint John Bosco was popularly known, had a remarkably good system for the education of youth.   He called it ‘preventive system’.   The educators should be ever vigilant so that wrong actions are prevented before they can be committed.   Reason, religion and loving kindness are the three pillars of that syste...

Truths of various colours

You have your truth and I have mine. There shouldn’t be a problem – until someone lies. Unfortunately, lying has been elevated as a virtue in present India. There are all sorts of truths, some of which are irrefutable. As a friend said the other day with a little frustration, the eternal truth is this: No matter how many times you check, the Wi-Fi will always run fastest when you don’t actually need it – and collapse the moment you’re about to hit Submit . Philosophers call it irony. Engineers call it Murphy’s Law. The rest of us just call it life. Life is impossible without countless such truths. Consider the following; ·       Change is inevitable. ·       Mortality is universal. ·       Actions have consequences. [Even if you may seem invincible, your karma will catch up, just wait.] ·       Water boils at 100 o C under normal atmospheric pressure. ·    ...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...

Coffee can be bitter

The dawns of my childhood were redolent of filtered black coffee. We were woken up before the birds started singing in the lush green village landscape outside home. The sun would split the darkness of the eastern sky with its splinter of white radiance much after we children had our filtered coffee with a small lump of jaggery. Take a bite of the jaggery and then a sip of the coffee. Coffee was a ritual in our home back then. Perhaps our parents believed it would jolt our neurons awake and help us absorb our lessons before we set out on the 4-kilometre walk to school after all the morning rituals at home. After high school, when I left home for further studies at a distant place, the ritual of the morning coffee stopped. It resumed a whole decade later when I completed my graduation and took up a teaching job in Shillong. But I had lost my taste for filtered coffee by then; tea took its place. Plain tea without milk – what is known as red tea in most parts of India. Coffee ret...