Five-Oh

Sonu pulls an illegal U turn against traffic. An angry policeman in khakis blows a whistle at us and points violently at the side of the road. Reluctantly, Sonu pulls over. “Say we’re going to the airport.” I would normally balk against lying to an officer of the law, but two things stick in my mind.

The first is a previous conversation with Sonu. I had revealed my status as a Marine to him, one of the first times so far on the trip. His excited respect made me wonder why I was keeping it a secret.

“Indians love soldiers!” he nearly shouts at me, grinning. “We hate police, but we love soldiers!”

“Why?” I’m confused on both fronts. 

“Police bad men. Criminals in uniform. Take bribes, hurt people. But soldiers keep us safe! Everyone in India loves soldiers!”

This is reinforced, for everywhere Sonu took me, he first introduced me as a soldier. Disinterested shopkeepers, ticket takers, and nearly every Indian we ran into perked up and shook my hand until it hurt. It’s almost better to be an American soldier in India than it is in the States. But the thing about the cops stuck with me, and I filed it away.

The second thing is that right before we’d made that “illegal” u turn, the car in front of us had done the exact same thing. I didn’t see them get pulled over. I wondered if we were about to be subjected to a “fine” that the tourist would have to pay.

Sonu gets out of the car, and I watch as he walks over to the policeman, a tall thin guy with a sneering face. There’s something about him I instantly do not like. Sonu points to the car, to me, gesticulates. The officer points back to the car and points to traffic, clearly pissed off and busy. Sonu makes to get back in the car and drive away, but he is stopped. I can’t hear any of their conversation, but am getting the gist of it. Sonu walks back to the car and pulls out his license.

“What’s up?”

“I break law, I have to pay fine.” Sonu says, shrugging. I nod, seems fair to me. He returns to the officer, who waves him away. Sonu begins to get angry. He starts gesticulating and then walking toward the larger police box that dominates the intersection. The officer attempts to stop him, but Sonu will not be dissuaded, he walks across traffic, nearly getting killed twice. I wonder what has gone wrong.

Sonu walks up to the police box, points to the officer, points to the car with me in it, and waves his arms around some more. He is sent back to the car. The officer walks up and indicates for me to roll down my window. I oblige.

“Your driver is bad.” His sneer is pronounced. I can tell he’s enjoying himself.

A couple responses come to mind. Deciding against “Go fuck yourself.” I respond with “I think he’s a very good driver.”

The cop grunts and walks away. I roll the window back up. Sonu winks at me, but there isn’t time to talk. He heads back to the police box with the cop. More arm waving. Eventually, the officer’s shockingly overweight supervisor climbs out of the box and braves four lanes of traffic to walk over to the car. He indicates for me to roll down the window. Again, I oblige.

“English?” he grunts, his own barely understandable.

I suddenly decide I don’t speak English. Something about this stinks, and my instincts tell me we’re getting screwed or that someone is trying to screw us. From somewhere in my brain, all the half remembered languages I’ve learned over my lifetime come burbling up. I spout nonsense in Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Japanese. I throw the three Cambodian words I know in for some color. I avoid Arabic and Chinese, as any Muslim Indian would know Arabic, and there was a good chance Chinese might be well known in this region of the world. I top it all off with a loud and violent repetition of the phase everyone who doesn’t speak English knows: “NO ENGLES!”

The supervisor tries again. “Your driver has broken-“ He doesn’t get to finish.

“NO ENGLES!” My eyes drift from the cop’s face to Sonu, who is standing behind both of them. His grin has been growing progressively larger and larger. I take that as encouragement. I start gesticulating at the road and swearing in Spanish.  A small voice in the back of my head wonders if I’m going to Indian prison today.

Both cops look like they have no idea what to do with me. The fat one stands up straight and indicates for me to roll the window up. I swear some more in German and roll it up. Sonu points at me, points at the car and then the thin policeman. The fat one starts lumbering his way back across traffic, Sonu and the thin one following.

Minutes later, Sonu walks up to the car, license less and clutching a yellow paper. He gets in, tucks the yellow paper in the glove compartment and then turns to me with a serious face.

That immediately erupts into his trademarked grin.

“Sonu, what happened?”

“We break law, I must pay fine!” He sounds excited.

“Why is that a good thing?”

“It is good because of how I pay.” Sonu looks like he really wants me to understand this. “The police man, he stop us because he saw the car was not from this province.” I remember the crash course in Indian “provinces” that Sonu had given me on the road to Agra. “The car in front of us, it was from here, so he let it pass.” I nod, signaling understanding. “But us he stop. And when I ask him to write me ticket. He tell me to just give him the money!” He looks at me. “But he would just take it then! I broke law, I should pay ticket, but he would just pocket money and let me go.”

I nod. I’m familiar with the concept of corrupt officials.

“So I demand a ticket, to pay at police office later, so that the India gets my money, not him! But he not want to give me ticket! And that is why so long!”

“Sonu, you’re telling me you fought the police for half an hour just so you could get a piece of paper that says you have to pay a ticket?” It boggles my mind that Sonu has enough patriotic pride to risk fighting the cops just to pay a fine in the end.

“Yes!” He’s excited that I understand. We start to drive off.

“Hey what about your license?”

“They take it.”

“But how are you supposed to-“ I cut off as he pulls a second license from his glove box.”

“Never give the Indian police your real license.”

“Sonu, you’re a hell of a guy.”

-Doug