Mumbai Police Rocks!!
Sunday, December 14. Time: 2350 hours.
Two men get out of a taxi outside CST station. One of them is wearing a blue jacket and denims while the other is wearing a striped tee-shirt and denims. They leave the taxi and walk past a police van towards the station. They enter the station. One of them gestures to the other to move towards the toilet. He starts to move towards it. They both enter the toilet, the one behind asks if he should get some coffee. The first one nods in approval. Number 2 exits.
Number 1 proceeds to .....number 1. He finishes the formalities and walks out of the stinking room towards Number 2. Number 2 buys coffee, while Number 1 moves towards another stall to get a bottle of mineral water. He buys it and they both meet again.
Number 1 (wearing the blue jacket) touches his back and says to Number 2, "I think I left my bag in the taxi.'
I am Number 1. Number 2 is my friend Nishit. He asks me if I am sure. I tell him I am. I definitely had it with me in the cab, and now I don't. He asks me what was in the bag. A file, with my motor-cycle's original registration papers in it. DAMN!
Nishit jokes that the cabbie would be scared shit of a bag left behind. I say yeah. We walk out of CST station to the place we left the cab. The police van is still there. They see us walking around, looking here and there, and in these times, they are intrigued. They ask us what happened. We tell them. They ask us if we know the taxi number.
FLASHBACK: Why we are at CST in the first place. We have just dropped our friend to the Naval Base. At the entry of the base, we were stopped and asked for identification. Nishit and I didn't belong there while my friend had to make an entry at the gate about the taxi number. Taxi number. Taxi number.
BACK: I call my friend. I ask for the taxi number. I get it. I tell the cops, yes I know the taxi number. I tell them. Nishit corrects me. The last two digits aren't 35, they are 55, he says. So we tell the cops the corrected number. They ask us when we left the cab, 10 minutes back we say. They say they will broadcast it over the wireless! WHAT?
They take my phone number. They tell me to look for the cab myself also, while they broadcast it. I walk towards the out-station train area looking at and scrutinising every taxi with care. Can't find the one!
5 minutes. FIVE minutes. Yes, FIVE MINUTES, I get a call.
Caller: 'Are you Arpit Sharma?'
Me: 'Yes.'
Caller: 'Did you leave a bag behind in a cab?'
Me: 'Yes.'
Caller: 'Your bag is at Colaba Police Station. Go and collect it.'
Me: 'Thank you.' (Still shocked).
I call Nishit, find him and we take a cab to the police station. I walk in. I see a police man with my bag. I see the cab driver who dropped us to CST. We complete the formalities, they just take my name, number, address, telephone number, my dad's name. They do the same with the cabbie. All done, I walk out with my bag.
We take the same cab to CST again. We ask the cabbie what happened.
CABBIE VERSION: I left you at VT. And from there I went to Regal. I parked behind Regal. There was a cab standing behind me. A passenger got into it and it left. I saw a police wireless van enter the lane from the no-entry side. I was a little curious as to what is happening. By this time I was out of my taxi and standing. They cops came to me.
They: 'Is it your cab.'
Me: 'Yes.'
They: 'What is inside?'
Me: 'Nothing.'
They: 'Are you sure. Isn't there a bag inside?'
Me: 'No Sir. You can check.'
They check and find the bag. They brought me to the police station.
I have my bag back with all the documents intact. We get down at CST, pay him, Thank him. We walk to the police van and thank the cops there. They ask me if I have everything. I say I do. They say The police got it for you didn't they?
