Taking pictures at public establishments like the airport or a railway station is iffy business. You never know when the hopped up security force will take umbrage to having their work photographed and when they’ll give you a display of their pearly whites. Recently, when a passenger standing in a long line at the airport’s security check clicked a few pictures of the line and the slow progress, a particularly brusque looking CISF guard strode up to him and asked him to open his phones gallery. Despite protests and exclamations of how this was an intrusion of privacy, the guard forcibly deleted the images on the phone pertaining to the security screening and stiffly said that it was not allowed. When the irate passenger appealed to a higher power, he was shown a sign that said that photography and videography was prohibited for security reasons. Battered but not beaten, he stuck it to them in a manner that would have made Kim Kardashian proud. Standing in the same security line, he turned around and shot selfies of himself with the same guards and the winding line in the background. This time when the guard strode up to him to repeat his errand, the gentleman politely told him that he was well within his right to take photos of himself anywhere, anytime and if they were to object to that then every single persons phone ought to be checked to see if they had clicked photos in and around the airport and all of those duly deleted. The guard huffed, puffed and realised that his shift was coming to an end and pushed off defeated. The only fall out? When it was the passengers turn to clear the scanner, his bags and body invited a strangely long and thorough search — the kind that would have made an Al Qaeda operative squirm.
Aiyya’s ‘Makeover’
Hello, aiyya is in a meeting, please call later — this is the reply one often gets upon reaching a certain police inspector on his mobile. But then, it could very well mean that the cop could be in one of his facial sessions at a beauty parlour in his jurisdiction in the city.
Journalists, who cover city crime, learnt that this inspector takes great care of his looks. They learnt about the deliberate efforts that he was taking for his appearance, only after making a dozen calls.
Being an inspector, he could be in line for a meeting with superiors starting from the Assistant Commissioner of Police and the City Police Commissioner who is an ADGP-rank official.
However, when his assistant who picks up the call says that aiyya is in meeting, no other superior would actually be holding the meeting. With little efforts, it was learnt that the inspector has the habit of getting facials done late in the afternoon — the time during which, he will be disturbed very little for any law and order related policing.
The ‘Abusive’ Source
Sometime, a reporter has to hear more than just the information that his or her sources give. This reporter had to hear an earful from a source while speaking to him over phone. However, it wasn’t directed at the scribe. In the middle of the conversation, the source began to get into a high-decibel tussle with a fellow motorist using the choicest of abuses. Later he realised his folly and called up to apologise rather sheepishly.
