Chennai, Delhi, India - its all the same

Chennai, 25th April 2014

8.30 a.m.

I had just finished submitting my photograph and fingerprints for the US visa I was applying, at the US visa Application Center office on Cenotaph road. I called my dog's trainer saying I would be home soon, requesting him to wait for the 10-15 minutes it took me to drive the 3 kms to my home. I had to finish that and then go to office for a meeting.

I cut the call and started driving back. I passed by the Greenways road turning, forgetting to take a right. "Nevermind", I thought, "I can always take the straight road via R.A.Puram. Sure its a crowded area, but this early should be safe!"

I was wrong.

I entered the slum area in R.A.Puram. It is called Kamaraj Salai, and is just beyond the popular Sangeetha South-Indian cuisine restaurant. Some among you may object to me calling it this derogatory term. Consider this - There are encroachments on both sides of the road. Beyond that are two lines of vehicles parked on both sides again. Then there are the numerous hordes of people walking on the road, ignoring the vehicles desperately trying to drive through the place. Every car is eyed with hostility by the pedestrians, women walk around in their night clothes, and men in even less. Don't be surprised at some drunk man suddenly falling in front of your vehicle at any time. There is a distinct sense of violence hanging in the air always.

I carefully wove through the throngs crowding the road even at this early hour. Suddenly a boy, no more than 18-19, if that old, appears on a bike before me. He came from the opposite direction, heading straight for my car in the wrong lane. He seemed to notice me less than 50m away, so engrossed was he in speedily overtaking another biker in his lane. He skid, I swerved, he passed me by narrowly touching my car, he fell.

I stopped the car and rolled down the windows. Was he okay?? A crowd quickly gathered around him. But a crowd started to gather around me too. People were banging on my car, when did that happen? In my mind I saw what would happen next, this being our good ol' India - they would pull me out of the car, beat me, strip me if they could, molest me as much as they could, and it would be too late by the time the police arrived, if anyone even calls them.

I drove forward, surging through the crowd choking my way. I drove through streets and lanes, trying to get to the nearest policeman, because there was never one stationed in this area. Ever. Yes, even the police are scared of these people.

I was being followed by a few men on bikes. As I took a U-turn on R.K.Mutt road to get near the check-post on Adyar bridge, they cornered my vehicle and stopped me. I rolled down the windows, thinking I could talk some sense into them. What was I thinking?! I started saying we should all go to the police station, when the man leading the charge hit me. Once, twice, thrice, over and over again. I screamed for help, while buses and people in other vehicles passed by. No one came. The man kept calling me "thevadiya", meaning prostitute, and didn't stop hitting me. "How dare you hit our boy!", he yelled. I screamed back, "but he was coming on the wrong side!!", and he yelled back, "so what, you should have moved!" His friends surrounded him and egged him on. It turned into a fight for my car key as he kept trying to snatch it from the ignition while hitting my face and arms at the same time.

Slowly, after almost 5-7 minutes, a crowd of people gathered around me. Some of them were not connected to the goons who were hitting me. The main man ran away before I could come back to my senses - I know because I looked for him later in the crowd. A kind cyclist passing by lent me his phone because I just couldn't find mine. I called my dad, then found my phone and called the police (Emergency number - 100).

Another few minutes later, a traffic cop came by. He stood near my car, and did nothing to calm the crowd. He spoke to them in tamil thinking I wouldn't understand, saying that my hands were shaking and I was crying probably as an act to garner sympathy. 

Another patrol car came by with just one constable driving it. He noticed the crowd, the car with the lone woman surrounded by it with the windows rolled down, and very unhelpfully took away my car key. He advised me to not go anywhere, and drove away leaving me stranded there.

Eventually, the police squad came. 10-12 policemen in squad cars and motorbikes, armed to the teeth, quickly surrounded my car and dispersed the crowd. I'd never seen a sight so welcome to me in that moment. My dad arrived a few minutes later, having driven from Annanagar which is nearly 12 kms away.

You'd think the drama would end there. You would be wrong.

I was taken to the traffic police station first, of all things. No one cared that I was hurting, that my face and my arms had swelled up from the beating - not the policemen and certainly not the crowd of goons. We had to go to the Besant Nagar station for the accident case, while the assault case I wanted to file would have to be done at the Abiramapuram police station. I was forcibly made to wait at the Besant Nagar station till 2 in the afternoon that day, without anyone even giving me a break to go to the loo or file the assault charges or go see a doctor.

Reports came in about the biker boy being admitted in a private hospital nearby. His friends and relatives demanded insane amounts of money from my dad, plus medical expenses till the end of time. Dad refused, and an accident complaint was given by them to the police instead. The hearing is due soon. The boy suffered from some scrapes on his elbow and a minor head wound.

After being released from the traffic police station, I was asked to complete the RTO brake test for my car if I wanted it back, so I got onto that. Lunch was quickly snatched on the way at around 3 p.m. By the time we reached the Abiramapuram station to file the assault complaint, it was 5 p.m.

We waited about 30 minutes for the Inspector to return from whatever siesta he was having. I'd given up hope of seeing a doctor and had swallowed a pain killer instead to keep the hurt at bay. Still, my arm was in a sling I'd bought to support it, and I was exhausted. After narrating to the officer what happened, we waited again till 8 p.m. before our preliminary complaint was accepted. We were given what is called a CSR, which is the receipt of the complaint. This CSR, strangely, only said that I was verbally abused. No physical abuse was mentioned in it.

Chennai, 26th April
5.00 p.m.

We went back on the 26th, Saturday evening, at 5 p.m. like we'd been asked to. I'd finally managed to get my injuries checked and some painkillers prescribed. I went into the station and asked the policeman on duty what the status of my complaint was. What followed shocked me, again.

The policeman started yelling at me, saying he had conducted some enquiries in the accident area (instead of the assault location). He said that the locals there accused me of driving very fast (though it was impossible to drive above 30kmph in that crowd), and that I'd hit 3-4 more people too! So I asked him, "but what that any of that have to do with the assault case??", and he answered, "It's all connected, let the biker boy be released from the hospital first and then we'll call him and you together before filing an FIR".

Aghast, my dad and I went to our lawyer and told him what had happened. We found that the police were scared of filing the assault charges against my unknown assailant. Reason - the people from the slum area would mob their police station.

Chennai, 30th April

We set about filing a court order, ORDERING the police to file an FIR then. The court order has just come in, next in line is the FIR itself. Today is the 30th of April, 2014, Day-6 after the incident.