Police

The day started off very pleasant - me, mahesh n anlal (DAMn or MAD ?) as we fondly call the trio), had planned a weekend getaway to any place far from the sore buildings. Just after flinging stuff in the trunk and starting the engine - I was delighted to see the broken front windshield - something had fell on the glass from the flat above...nice...my daughter is hurt (my friend Jiju regards his car as his daughter, and you should listen to his melting voice as he says "ente mol"...well, I wouldn’t drive my daughter over a curb and turn her handicapped...Lol he did that couple months before - dad dozed off!

999 - Emergency no. nobody picks up - hmm...its weekend.
next practical idea is to visit nearest police station for reporting vandalism. In UAE if u need to mend any damage to your vehicle in a garage/service centre, you should have clearance paper from the traffic police - green paper ( not your mistake), red paper (your mistake). Our trip was now being delayed - dragged my friend Anlal and rushed to the station - the guy there asked us to show up in the afternoon.

After our trip we returned to the same police station. The customer service guy asked us to wait in the lobby - unlike police stations back in our land, here the ambience is like any other decent office. There were some snack-beverage vending machines to our side - so, we had coffee and like good citizens dropped the plastic cups in the nearby bin. A bit while later, a young Arabic speaking officer in uniform, almost in his teens came and used the vending machine adjacent to the beverage one, and that was when it struck us...!!!...we had mistaken the swing door of that vending machine as trash bin and had dropped the used coffee cups there - exactly where the guy would now probe his hands to collect his chips and chocolate........................................!

we looked at each other....heyy..no, no, no... the coffee cups wont be thaaat warm...and observed the guy, trying not to display the mixed feelings on our faces. We were giving live commentary in Malayalam, looking as innocent as possible. A casual onlooker would not doubt if we were worried more about who the next prime minister would be, in the 2009 general elections...in fact we were concerned only about one thing - would it be politically "safe" to laugh at a police officer inside a police station? or not to??? soon that poor guys surprise turned to disgust as he passionately discovered the evidence.....thankfully, he did not make a scene and instead made sure no one noticed and left the extra stuff where he found those, and walked off with an air of dignity...

probably this crime does not qualify for an arrest... ?

the interrogation by another officer regarding the broken wind shield did not take much long - he was very polite in asking me "shall I write your mistake?" - I was surprised, hey, I had been behaving so politely, opening all doors for him and stuff like that...so I looked in his eyes and said romantically - "please..." (as sweet as i could manage)...and he retorted rudely "shu please??" - aware of my fluent Arabic skills, I smiled at him :) - (all I can say in arabic with confidence is "ana fyahamtha aish thagoola!!!" - I`m not sure if this has the same meaning in Arabic as I understand it)

after the little drama, the gentleman gave me green paper - doesn’t make any difference cuz, be it red or green - insurance is going to pay...