A Tribute to the Father of the Nation on his 149th Birthday

Photograph courtesy The Hndu

The Hindu reports that five men were arrested in Delhi yesterday for cheating. But cheating is no big deal, people cheat one another all the time. You are short-changed when you buy beer; the doctor you pay for his service prescribes tests that have nothing to do with your problems. You pay a hefty sum to improve your spoken English, and when you go into the classroom, the teacher needs your help to complete the first English sentence she says. Cheating has been a way of life in India for as long as I can remember, which happens to be a pretty long time! So, for that, please don’t blame the BJP government even if you were an Urban Maoist. Contrarily, if you happened to drink cow’s urine for breakfast, please don’t blame Nehru for the scourge of rampant frauds in India. Accept that it is in our DNA.

Yesterday, I read an anecdote in William Dalrymple’s The City of Djinns. Dalrymple happens to be an authentic sahib, that is, he’s not of the brown variety. After relocating to India as a young man, he didn’t run away. I personally think the reasons (for not running away) should be looked into by the CBI, but that is besides the point.

Once Dalrymple wished to visit Pakistan, and after a lot of efforts with the Indian Immigration, he managed to obtain a temporary exit permit. At the emigration desk in the New Delhi airport, a customs officer asked him to produce his computer, music system, and electric kettle, which he had brought into the country, and had been dutifully noted down in some corner of his passport. A flummoxed Dalrymple protested. He was leaving India for only five days, and nobody carries an electric kettle or music system while on a short visit.

However, poor Dalrymple didn’t know that the conscientious customs official’s forefathers had been trained by Dalrymple’s own forefathers once upon a time. The man in white uniform said, ‘What is the guarantee that you are not already selling your articles to a sleazy shopkeeper near Jumma Masjid? Come on, Sahib, I am not being able to stamp your passport; kindly fuck off!’ (Or something to that effect.)

Happily, the sahib could ultimately make the trip. He rushed back to his home, gathered the stuff, and returned to the airport to deposit the said objects in a custom’s strong room. (This shows that Dalrymple shares my philosophy of reaching the airport at least four hours before any flight.) Anyway, the twist in the tail would come when he would return from Pakistan.

The same custom’s officer, as he was handing back the stuff, ran his hand on the music system softly and looked at it like a teenaged lover. Then he whispered, ‘Sahib, will you like to sell it for a good price?’

Coming back to my original point, we have grown up hearing stories like this. They no longer excite us. They are like pulp fiction, you know what will happen next. But rarely, we come across a fraudster who astonish us with their originality or organisational skills. Like the “CBI officer” who recruited 26 men and women and conducted a “raid” on a jeweller in Opera House, Mumbai in 1987. Never to be seen again!

Like Akshay Kumar in the film Special 26, the protagonists of the Hindu story today, that is, Shekhar Tyagi (25), Neeraj (25), Tanvir (28), Amit Kundu (28) and Sandeep Kumar (29) attract my attention for several reasons.

First, they are all young men in their twenties, who have seen through the sham of what has been proposed by our prime minister to unemployed young men. They have cleverly calculated that if every unemployed young man/woman begin to sell pakodas, there would be no young men/woman left to buy them. So, they ditched the pakoda route to prosperity.

The second thing that impressed me was the secular nature of the enterprise. It’s lovely to see young men rise above religions, castes, and linguistic groups to set up a collaborative venture.

Also, one of them is an engineer, and another is doing Masters. Clearly, they have used the knowledge gathered at college quite creatively.

Finally, who would not salute them for their managerial expertise? The Hindu says:

“They had registered various fake companies and used a call centre-like set-up to cheat people. … They had registered various fake tele-calling companies with government departments and used those to dupe people, the police said.”

The police got into the case when one Ashok Kumar Poddar told them that he was “induced into transferring nearly Rs. 1 crore into the bank accounts of various tele-calling companies for the services of facilitating refund of amount of his dormant insurance policies.” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Anto Alphonse. (One crore! OMG!)

The police discovered that the fake callers would tell potential victims that their company had decided to renew their insurance policies and pay the maturity amounts. They would then ask the targets to deposit money into (fake) bank accounts so that their claims could be processed. While the target waited for the cheque with dreamy eyes, the insurance company would vamoose.

Mr. Alphonse added, “The various fake companies, registered by the gang, offered services like job placements, tour operation, business support. While the companies registered with government departments only existed on papers, the accounts were opened in the name of non-existent IDs.”

Despite my sneaking admiration for the fraudsters, I take my hats off to Delhi Police for catching them. But what can we do to the beer-seller, the doctor, or the cheater teacher?

Bengaluru

Monday, 01 October 2018