The other day the security personnel at a South Delhi Metro station met their match in a colleague, who questioned them for their “excesses” in the name of duty. It so happened, our colleague was stopped by a security personnel manning the baggage scanner at the entrance. And the reason was a simple plastic water bottle that she was carrying in her purse, which looked like a hipster flask. Donning a very grim face the security person asked a lady security personnel on duty to check the very suspicious looking bottle in our colleague’s purse. The lady staffer took the matter even more seriously and asked our colleague to drink the liquid in the bottle just to prove that the bottle actually contained water and not alcohol.

Though slightly irritated our colleague, with a straight face told the lady “Aap hi pi lijiye. Mai toh daaroo bhi pi loongi. (You drink it. I may even consume alcohol.)” That perhaps convinced the lady guard of the innocuousness of the bottle and its contents. But then she went quite a few steps further and started to frantically search her bag. One by one she took out two mobile phones, two wallets, an ATM card case, her personal ID cards like Aadhar and PAN cards and all other paraphernalia from our colleague’s bag. And all this stuff she began heaping on a chair.

Though seething at this unneccessary “checking” overdrive, our colleague quietly collected her belongings and marched straight to the seniormost security personnel and asked him gently but firmly whether it was in order of things for the lady staff to have taken out all the contents of the purse, when she could have easily sifted through them. If a passenger was in a hurry to, say, catch a train and in the confusion left behind an expensive item or important document, who would be responsible. Our colleague then pointed out that if it was the security staff’s duty to suspect everyone and anything, it was within her rights to suspect the intentions of the lady staff. At that the senior officer, realising his colleague’s misdemeanour, instructed his staff not to touch anyone’s belongings but ask the concerned person to take out the suspicious article on one’s own. Satisfied at having made her point, our colleague sailed past the lady staff towards the Metro platform.

Midnight guest

Sleeping late is the new norm for the “millenial” generation. Gone are those days when everyone would abide by the axiom, “Early to bed and early to rise!” However, a young colleague insisted this so-called “bad habit” can turn out to be fruitful, especially when an unwanted guest invades one’s apartment at midnight! In the habit of sleeping late, our colleague was, the other day, busy with his usual chores around 3 a.m. in the morning. Suddenly, his attention was caught by a young boy on the balcony, searching for something with his torchlight. Surprised by his furtive activity, our colleague called the building watchman, alerting him about the situation. When the watchman came upstairs and confronted the boy, it was found that he lived in the next building and he was looking for his clothes that he left to dry on the terrace, but had fallen on our colleague’s balcony. Convinced by his reply, the watchman allowed him to leave. But then, our colleague, who was watching this drama, wondered whether his bad habit had caused some good at least!

Hygiene menace

For any pilgrim visiting one of the many temples and shrines dotting the country, the prasad or temple food, holds a lot of importance. In fact, we take much pride in the variety of temple food one finds across the country. However, what we fail to notice is the most significant aspect ~ hygiene. A colleague narrated how she was shocked to witness a singular lack of hygiene in one of the most famous temples of India, which is located in Puri, Odisha ~ Jagannath temple.

The temple offers to take devotees through their Paakshaala, or cook house, where the prasad is prepared. Armed with tickets of Rs 5 each, to go through the cook house and witness how the offerings to God are prepared, a motely group, including our colleague, made their way through the place. But our colleague was ill-prepared for a shocking sight.

The priests in charge of preparing the prasad were seen urinating right next to the cooking area even as the touring devotees looked on in disgust. If one can’t think of hygiene even at a religious place like this, what can one expect in other places, our colleague wondered, as she refused to partake of the prasad.

Tailpiece

Our in-house wag wondered if it was fine to use plastic hoardings to exhort people to say “No” to plastics?

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Contributed by: R V Smith, Rakesh Kumar, Alpana Bhaumik, Kunal Roy, Nivedita R and D K Guha.