On the wrong side of Law

Disclosure/Prologue: The below entry contains a lot Hindi. So, non-Hindi speaking folks can find it difficult to understand.

1107 hrs
Other side: Namaskar, Kalyan Banerjee ji bol rahe hain?
Me: Jee.
OS: Main Delhi TH Court ka munshi AR bol raha hun. Aapke khilaf aaj dopahar 2 baje is court mein Indian Penal Code ke tahat case dayar kiya ja raha hai.
Me (Fumbling): What the Fuck?
AR: Kya?
Me: Ji, matlab. Aisa kaise, maine kya kiya?
AR : Ji, main yeh to nahin bata sakta magar aap agar 2 baje ke pehle is court mein aa jayen to mamala tal sakta hai.
Me: Aaj? 2 baje ke pehle? Magar main to Bangalore mein hun.
AR: Oh ho. Phir to shayad court apko summon kare Tees Hazari Court dilli mein.
Me: Arre, magar case to bataiye.
AR: Janab, main to munshi hun. Mere paas kewal itni hi jaankari hai.

Try to imagine the scenario. You are working in office to meet an important deadline (couple this with the tension of another impending certification exam) and you get a call saying that 3 hours later you will be charged of some illegal activity and that too 2400 kms away.

Me: To phir main kisse baat karun?
AR: TH court ke advocate DK se baat karen. ( Then he gives the number. I’m not disclosing the number due to confidentiality reasons.)
Me: Jee shukriya AR saab.

1110 hrs:
Me: Namaste, DK ji bol rahe hain?
OS: Nahin woh abhi busy hain, aap thodi der mein baat karen.
5 minutes later
Me: Namaste. DK ji?
OS: Yes. Boliye.
Me: Mere paas court ke munshi AR-ji ka phone aaya thaa ki mere khilaf aaj 2 baje court mein mukadma dayar hone waal hai. Aap bata…
Dinkar: (Snapping midway) Aap mere assistant DB se baat karen. (Gives his phone number and puts down the phone)

In less that 15 minutes, my world seemed topsy-turvy. A few minutes earlier, my Diro was patting my back due to the CUSTOMER DELIGHT i procured in the earlier project. And now, I was on the verge of being the first person in my entire family tree to be on the wrong side of the court.

1120:

Me: Namaste, kya yeh DB ji bol rahe hai?
OS: Jee.
Me: blah blah blah..
DB: Haan. Apke khilaf Telecome Regulatory Authority of India aur BA ne mukadma kiya hai.

Now, at this point I understood everything. Never in my life I have been able to evade in evade-able financial transactions. The only instance when I did, at least I thought I did, failed. I didn’t pay BA’s bill when I shifted from A to B.

The rest part of the story is obvious. I paid the bill ASAP and let the Asst. of the advocate know the bill receipt number. I got a call from him 15 min later that the case will not go to the courts.
Moral of the story

• Your past actions can come back and hit you. Anytime.
• Pay your bills: phone, ration, dudh, grocery, credit card on time. If not on time, at least pay them before you are dragged to court.

I am now going to review my entire non-payment history and outstanding history in the next week. Warna pata nahin, kitni baar dilli court jana pade.

Epilogue

A worried friend of mine -J called me a few min back to know the situation. Now, he tried to show another angle of the story. Here’s it. The entire drama might be scripted and enacted by BA guys. Since they weren’t getting any payment from my side even after months, a little role-play on phone wouldn’t hurt them isn’t it?

Now when I tried to see the phone number of the first call from the so called Munshi of TH court, I see the number doesn’t start with 2 but with 3. A government body (Court I mean) using a private company’s network seems highly improbable. So, was the number of BA guys? I check back the broadband number at my earlier city and see that it starts with 4.

Can you solve the riddle?

P.S. Remember Rajesh Khanna’s line in Anand: ” Jeevan mein kuchh bada paane ki asha mein hum pal pal ki chhoti chhoti khushiyon ko bhul jaate hain.“. This drama is just another attempt to DRAMATIZE MY OWN LIFE. And again, its based on true story. The names of entities (characters, places and business entities) have been changed though.