It was a pleasant night of summer when I was returning from Kolkata after a short holiday with my friends. We boarded the Samaleshwari Express from Howrah station platform no-17. We had berth no. 69 & 71 at Coach no-S 2. The coach was almost empty with only 8 to 10 peoples around us among them three were ladies.
The train left for its destination and it was 9:35 P.M. People started opening there dinner packets to have it and so did the two guys sitting on our adjacent compartment with an unusual thing. They moved to the upper berth and started having there dinner there while the whole of the compartment was almost empty. We wondered why they were doing so, because sitting on the upper berth is too much uncomfortable for an adult and they were having dinner there. We ignored that and started having our dinner but suddenly two RPF personnel came for the regular checking and they suddenly understood the whole situation with those guys.
Hats off to the force!!
The two guys were consuming alcohol along with their dinner thinking that if they are in the upper berth nobody would catch them but it was there misconception. The RPF personnel pulled them down with a doubt of it but got confirmed when they were caught red handed with half the bottle emptied.
I thought that the personnel would hand them over to the police in the next station but then the most usual ritual of India started between the offender and the government officials, yes, I am talking about bribery.
The guys went with the personnel near the toilet gate to have bargaining over the amount. One of the personnel asked for Rs-500/- for each of the two guys for closing down the matter. The two guys then started bargaining over it and it continued for about 15 minutes and finally the settlement came at Rs-700/- for both of them. But the bottle was taken away by the personnel. The two guys came back to their respective berths to complete their dinner. But there was a joy among the RPF personnel saying “let’s have party tonight”, with the liquor of course.
The whole of the system is like this. It was a night train, the compartment was almost empty, there were ladies too and there were two drunk men in the same compartment, moreover that there were two RPF personnel who are supposed to protect passengers in case of any harassment, but they too were going to be drunk. Then how are they going to protect others when they themselves are out of control.
