Chapter 7_A Roller-Coaster Ride

Chapter 7

A Roller-Coaster Ride

Our hero from the last chapter, Khan, had been an amazingly cool guy so far. I had even wondered how one could be so calm and composed in the midst of all these confusions – forgetting to bring the documents, couriering it to a random hotel, trying to convince the others to go ahead with the original plan and so on. However, this time, along with the money he lost his cool as well. He was almost in tears. We tried to pacify him. We made him to contact his bank and block his account. He then rang up his uncle, who is a police officer in Kerala, and sought his help. His uncle suggested that we lodge a complaint with the local police. However, he said that the chances of getting the money back was very bleak. I rang up Sandeep ettan, my senior in college and currently an assistant manager in Federal Bank, and narrated the events to him. It surprised him as well that this guy had managed to loot our money even without the UPI PIN. Apparently, this was a new development in the ‘bank fraud’ sector! Sandeep ettan gave us a little hope when he said that it is possible that the bank would give us the money back (even though they may not be able to recover it from the other guy), as we hadn’t shared the password with him.

In a later conversation with Sandeep ettan, I had shared my concern of how we, despite our schooling and exposure to the digital world, had easily fallen into such a trap and how people who may not have had such an exposure were even more vulnerable. However, his response was thought provoking – “the irony is that, they are the least affected; they are extra careful, because they know that they could be pulled into trouble.” He had a point there.

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Out of Curiosity…

Fake Customer Care Executives: It is quite natural that we all search on Google for ‘customer care numbers’ of various services (be it Blue Dart, Tez, Zomato, Airtel or EPFO). Beware! There are scamsters waiting for you out there. Of late, there have been several cases where fake customer care executives elicited information such as bank account details, debit/credit card numbers, UPI IDs and passwords etc. on the pretext of support and initiating refunds. Read more…

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Sensing that something had gone wrong, the taxi drivers came towards us. We narrated the whole story to them. All they could do was sympathize with us. They gave us the directions to the nearest police station. We gave them a small gift as a token of gratitude for accommodating us and giving us company. We then headed towards the police station. Of all places in the world, we had a tough time finding the police station. After umpty number of re-routings, we finally reached ‘Hare Street’ police station. It was located a little away from the main road, on a small street. We parked our bikes on the main road itself; Khan and I went to the station. It was a red coloured building and was air-conditioned. Four police officers were seated behind a table in the first room. Each of them, heard out the petitioners, one at a time. We waited for our turn, which came after about 20 minutes. The officer who heard our story wasn’t surprised at all about it. Apparently, many such ‘bank fraud’ cases were reported every other day. He asked us to submit a written complaint. We came out of the station. There were a couple of road side shops there. We got a few A4 sheets, but the shops didn’t have pens. Of course, it was bound to be so. Inside my head, a video from a couple of days back was retrieved and played again. In that flashback video, I could see the past me packing my bag on the day before the trip. I could also see me giving a lecture to Mahesh on why it is essential to carry a pen and notebook on a trip. And now, we had a practical example here. I hadn’t brought the pen with me though! We borrowed a pen from a stranger and wrote the complaint.

 When we took shelter in the street shops… (Chapter 6)

Thanks to all those letter writing exercises from school, we didn’t have much of a difficulty in writing the complaint. Khan, quite a tall guy, was half bent as he kept the sheet on the seat of a scooter and wrote the complaint. “Kolkata, I’ll never forget our first meeting”, my mind said within. But the very same mind then quoted Mahesham – “road trips are like this”; what’s in it without such roller-coaster rides!

Again we had to wait for our turn to submit the complaint. Meanwhile, I observed the other people in the station. All of them had a long face, like Khan. The atmosphere was filled with grievances. I walked out of the room. A police jeep arrived. The officer parked the vehicle in front of the station, on the small lane itself. Now there was hardly any space for another four-wheeler to pass by. Soon a car came that way; the lady in it started yelling at the officer. Unlike the south police, he didn’t swear back. He moved the vehicle to the adjacent street and allowed the lady to pass by. However, after that he brought the vehicle back to its old position itself and blocked the entrance to the lane from both the ends with barricades. Moral of the story: you don’t mess with the police, be it the south or the north.

Another interesting thing about Kolkata is the way people park their vehicles.  Not even a centimeter is wasted, to the extent that all vehicles kiss each other – a light touch, soft enough to not leave a mark. “Skill, pure skill,” an astonished Mahesh had remarked.

Kolkata traffic…

If you are able to recall your school days, you might remember that your compositions (including letters) wouldn’t be approved by the teacher in your first attempt. Some changes had to be made – always. Even that is done intentionally, I assume – to prepare you for life. Yes, the police officer asked us to rewrite the letter with a few changes. Another stranger, another pen, another letter.

It was 5:30 PM by the time the letter was submitted. Our prayers were answered when the officer didn’t ask us to rewrite the letter a third time.

We were unanimous in our decision to leave Kolkata as soon as possible. We decided that we should keep ‘Dumka’ as our target and ride for as long as possible, at least till 10 PM. After tea, we took the alternate highway as suggested by the traffic police whom we met near Howrah Bridge. In about 70 kilometers, we had to take another highway. The roads were good, but as we progressed on the second highway, it became deserted. It was a narrow, single lane road and there were not many people or buildings out there. Once in a while, there would be a signboard which read ‘this is a highway’. My mind would reply, “thanks for the reaffirmation!” Our stomachs started murmuring; however, we couldn’t find any restaurants on the way. I started to panic after a while. It was 11 by the time we found a small restaurant in a little town on the way. The tawa roti and channa masala were too good; just that we had to gobble it up as the guys there were in a hurry to close the shop.

Adios Kolkata!

Outside the shop, we met a guy who enquired about our trip. Like the traffic policeman in Kolkata, he too was planning a trip to Kerala. He then told us that it would take us just another hour to reach Dumka. We had to cross a dam and a forest stretch before we reached Dumka. He warned us not to stop our vehicles in the forest area. I could already feel the rhythm of my heartbeat.

We crossed the dam. We were the only creatures on the road, besides the frogs that crossed it every now and then. We were almost done with the forest stretch as well, when suddenly, at a distance, we saw a jeep parked in the middle of the road. There were three men waiting for us, with guns in their hands.

(to be continued…)