Of Police, media and other forms of recreation

Been M.I.A for a while, huh, fellers? What to do, it's well nigh impossible to attend to two blogs at a time. And my other blog had been keeping me completely busy these last few days.

I kid, of course.

In actual point of fact, the venerable broadband service providers of this holy state of Jharkhand were playing games with me. I was practically out of net at home (save a pathetic GPRS connection), and somehow I haven't really got around to writing posts at work. (Don't get me wrong here, it's not about scruples. I mean trading stocks, reading blogs or downloading Madelyn Marie at work is okay for me. Writing something takes a bit of peace and quiet.) It can all be put down to a copped out ADSL modem that took one week to detect and another to replace. But that wouldn't be an interesting story, no? Thought so.

In interesting news, then, there's this young stud. Bears a striking resemblance to Jeff Goldbaum the fly. If looks were the only criterion he would be babe magnet. Maybe he is. What matters, however, is that he and five of his friends took one girl to a pub. They all had plenty to drink. And smoke, maybe . Rest of the matter is sub-judice. This chap,Vinamra Soni, was on a train to Jamshedpur two days later. He took a call from his father, telling him to alight midway and wait for his parents, who were on their way to take him back to Mumbai, to surrender at a police station.

The parents-in-law of my good friend In dino (you can see him here, the bottle opener guy) live in Jamshedpur. They have this sprawling three-storied house in Sonari area. The ground floor they have rented out. Their tenants for the past twenty years are a well-to-do business family who own a few retail outlets in the city and are, reportedly, nice gentle folks. The landlords also report they used to raise their kids in a strict disciplinarian fashion.

You know where this is going, don't you? Only it's not getting there. The young Mr. Soni already has some support in the bloggosphere. I'm not here to strengthen it. Though he appears now to be in the deepest pile of shit. And I tend to have a bit of sympathy for anyone in deep shit.

It went like this. In the morn 21st last week, the Sonis told their landlords they'll be out of town for a few days. Business related problem, they said. Towards evening, cops were all over the premises. State cops and Mumbai police crime branch together. Short of a sniper and a coupla armoured cars, it looked exactly like a terrorist bust. They asked the landlord where were his tenants, and moreover, why he kept such shady tenants. They tried to kick open the tenants' front door. They accused the landlords of not keeping an eye on their tenant's errant son. Eventually they got tired after an hour or so (the door was solid teak) and left in a huff. Perhaps they had received news of the arrest. The landlords slept fitfully through the night.

Only to be woken up by scores of microphone wielding TV people in the morning. Ye hai aj tak, aur ham dikha rahe hain woh ghar jisme... They thrust the mic at their faces, the poor in-laws. Since when have you known Vinamra Soni? Did he have a normal childhood? How do you feel now that the boy who lived under your roof is today a wanted criminal?

I rolled on the floor when narrated the scene. Not because it was funny or anything. But it instantly reminded me of the one scene from Notting Hill, where Spike, in briefs, opens the front door for the paparazzi.


Oh how one wishes one could be in the right place at the right time, wearing the right sort of underwear!

In other news, I was leafing through an old Roald Dahl collection yesterday, when I stumbled on, and re-read, PIG. In these days of swine flu. Funny coincidence. Oddly, I've always loved stories like these, where terrible things happen to protagonists without reason or logic. So much so the macabre borders the surreal. I think I had a troubled childhood.