From Me to We to Me - part 1

I am 24 year old young man. I believe that every young person should be a Rang De Basanti (I dont agree with their violence), Youth for Equality (I stand for reservation) type socially proactive person. And I hate being conned for money. That is one of the reasons that I dont ride in autos because I hate being taken for a ride (what happens to my concerns for global warming). This was the principle behind today's story which sparked me of on a mental churn of self introspection.

I have recently started going to Lodhi Garden ( a beautiful park full of trees and heritage monuments) for a jog in the mornings. When I went today in the evening around 6:30pm I saw a peculiar sight. Two men wearing caps, holding a whistle each in their hands, were ushering the cars and the two wheelers in the parking space and collecting money from the passengers. One was a tall dark man with a moustache,apporximately in his late 30s, wearing a blue cap, navy blue shirt, and fawn coloured trousers, the other was a young ma in his 20s wearing black cap, red tshirt and black jeans. What's curious about this? only that this site is a FREE PARKING space. I was not asked to give any money but I couldnt bear the reality that other people were getting conned of their money (my principle you see!!). So I started on the journey of From Me to We ( why should I allow other people get conned?)

So I go upto these two men and ask them who they are and what were they doing.The tall man, Rehmanji, said that there were parking attendants who were put on the job by a contractor. The other guy first said his name is Sonu but changed it to Mohit when Rehman said Mohit instead. Upon being asked why there should be any parking attendants or a contractor in fee parking space (NDMC demarcated), they clearly became defensive. They tried to justify by saying that they were doing a service by looking after the cars and the contractor (Khan saab) had the permission of the SHO of the Tughlak Road police station. I got the number of the Khan dude and called him from my mobile (rejecting all visions of a Munnabai Part 1 dude who would be aggressive and threatening). He turned out to be no contractor and only a person who was known to these two people (also polite). Things were definitely fishy.

But clearly they were a small fish in the ocean. When I complained to Baldevj head constable from the Tughlak Road police station who was standing nearby, he chided them casually as he knew what they were upto. "Arre bhai, maine aapko bola hai na, yeh seeti mat bajao, gaadi aise hi lagao...kal se mat aao". My take on the superficial conversation, the constables of the nearby police station are in on this racket and earn a cut.

Eventually even Khan Bhai entered the scene. This was after the tall man made a call on his mobile (again I had to reject thoughts of a gang of goons appearing on this call). He too had nothing much to add except a seemingly ficticious story of how the Tughlak Road police had asked him to look after the security of the cars parked at Lodhi Garden in light of the recent trend of cars being stolen from the Lodhi Garden area.Nice initiative, do they have a letter of authority from the police? no, any identity? no.Fishy, fishy, fishy. In a seemingly orchestrated fashion, another head constable (I think his name is Prasad),this time from Lodhi Garden police station appeared. He looked as if he were doing his routine check (so routine that Khan Saab seemed very friendly with the constable). Shifting gears from his routine check, the policeman started defending the parking attendants, although he had nothing to say about why they did not have a legal license or authority letter from the police to do so. In the end we left it at the point that they agreed to my suggestion, that if they want to continue their service they should get some legal sanction from the police station otherwise I will follow up the case in the police station if I saw them doing the same thing again. Thus the journey of From Me to We ended.