My friend (and our scooter) Part 1

"Bhai, have you taken the scooter?", asked my friend over the phone.

"No", was my blunt reply.

"Well, then, where the fuck is it?", he yelled.

"How do I know? The keys were with you. I am walking back home, asshole."

And that was how we came to know that our second hand LML Vespa had been stolen. We had bought it as a means of conveyance when we shifted to a rented accommodation in our third year to escape from the drudgeries of our hostel, to escape from the food that would be rejected by a BPL person, to escape from the seniors (who were in their fifth/sixth year of engineering) who kept us awake all night long with their dumb conversations and gyan about life after college.

It was a second hand blue LML Vespa, bought for around 7000 bucks. It was past its prime by about 5 years, the brakes did not work, the headlight kept flicking on and off on its own whim, the horn was not audible even to the driver and the hook in front of the scooter, where you hang those polythene bags containing things of everyday need, was broken. But it could transport you from point A to point B, and that was all that mattered. We were starting a live-in relationship and a scooter was very essential for us. How else were we to get to college, bring groceries and booze and maybe someday a girl might want a lift somewhere (we hoped).

My friend, Prateek, had parked the scooter in front of our erstwhile hostel and it was not there when he came back in the evening. He searched frantically around the area and traced back his steps from the time he had flushed the toilet in the morning to the present moment, but alas, our 'precious' was gone. After a lot of yelling, arguments and accusations, we decided to go to a nearby police station to lodge a complaint. We had heard heard some wonderful stories about how delightful an interaction with the police could be and we needed some support for the same. We believed in strength in numbers and hence, we called some friends to accompany us to the station.

The police station was in a dingy alley in Jagadhri. It had two rooms lit with 50 watt bulbs. The light blue paint on the walls was peeling off and cobwebs hung from the ceiling. A dog was sleeping in a corner with an air of contentment around him. Paan stains were present in every corner of the place. A cot and khaki clothes, hung from pegs on the wall, were present in one room while, a desk and four wooden chairs adorned the other room. A rheumy eyed cop (or thulla, as we call him in Haryana) looked up at us with contempt, for we had disturbed him while he was reading a dirty magazine. 'Man, that girl on the cover has some humongous breasts', I thought.

"Key baat se?", he growled in Haryanvi.

"Our scooter is stolen.", replied Prateek, while I was praying that the ordeal would end over as soon as possible.

"So? Hundreds of scooters are stolen everyday.", he told us. A piece of information that did not bolster our hopes by one iota.

"We want to lodge an FIR.", I said. "Haha. FIR? You think that would help?", he laughed like that dumb sardar on Laughter Challenge does.

"Ok. Take this piece of paper and write the complaint", he said and handed the paper to Prateek, who took the paper and started writing. "Sir, Our scooter.......", he had written this much when the porn-loving cop looked over and yelled, "Angrez hai kya?. Hindi nahi aati?". I think a little pee came out from me at this moment and I damned Prateek to hell for having lost the scooter. Prateek too lost his control and couldn't write in our national language. So, one of our other friends helped him out and wrote the FIR in Hindi, which seemed like Greek to me at that point of time.

"If we find the scooter, we will inform you", said Mr. Porn. 'Excuse me....if we find the scooter?', I thought. Was this supposed to be some kind of needle in a haystack game. I think everyone of us knew that a bribe was inevitable for making this sorry assed cop a little sympathetic about our case, but no one among us had the guts to suggest such a thing.

A friend asked the cop, "How long do you think it will take to find the scooter?"

The cop looked at him as if he had asked the thulla for his kidney. "How the hell do I know, bhanch**? We will inform you if we find it.", he spat, signalling us to get our asses out of the place or he would lock us up for obstructing the work of the police. We scampered from the place like rats whose tails had been set on fire.

To be continued.......