Tale of a stolen bike

Boo hoo hoo...the bike i loved so much..my Yamaha RX-135 was stolen last saturday by some asshole. It was locked and inside the compound and yet.... :((

I have insurance and hence some consolation. The story is as follows..

On Friday night I came home and parked it in the compound. The house owners who live on the ground floor, had left for their native village the same day. Uncle was going to be back at night and then go. I went to lock the gate at about 11 but did not do so since i did not see Uncle's bike and thought that he would be coming in late. Woke up in the morning half hearing gentle worried words from Megha conveying the missing bike :(( What followed is even more interesting.

As all normal citizens would do me and megha started for a Police Station on megha's bike..seems like the bastard(s)? had deflated her bike and so we got only abt a kilometer far and were stranded in since there were no shops open at that time in the morning...so dragged the vehicle for some distance and then banged on a motor garage..a guy emerged fortunately and we left the bike there and proceeded in a rickshaw to the police station. There we were advised to get the papers of the bike xeroxed and come after 15-20 mins since the concerned policeman was not present. So it was done; only to be informed that I should go to some other police station. So it was said and again so it was done.

New police station all seemed fine. We wrote an application for filing the complaint following which we were to wait so that some constable would accompany us to the crime scene. So we waited and waited and waited and.....and were bored...wanted to rest my butt on something...so went up to the compound of the police station and did so on the wall...So both of us were sitting there like good law abiding citizens until some frustrated constable thought ill of it and whisked us away from there...so we again went inside and sat on the chairs.

After some time there was some frantic activity and before we knew what was happening the inspector of the station walked in. Everybody stood up when he did so..except for us :) Quite frankly I did not see the need for it...

Then everybody settled down and we were still waiting..sitting on the chairs and what followed that did disturb me. I was sitting and suddenly hear a policeman talking to me saying "This is too much sir..this is too bad.." I look around trying to grasp what had offended him. He looked at my legs..hmmm...I was sitting cross legged in my shorts and shaking my legs..(not any other body part just the legs :) ) and somehow this was not acceptable to him. I shrugged conveying a coredump. Another policeman joined in "You must show respect in a police station, otherwise we will file a case and lock you in". I again smiled at him since this also failed to parse..."No seriously" he followed it up and it soon sunk in that all this was not in any sort of light vein.

What complete bullshit? I was sitting there harming no one, bearing out the delay, a worried man whose bike has been stolen and those bastards have the audacity to threaten me just because I was shaking my leg?? I did not view a confrontation as the best thing to do and so I straightened up my legs and sat in disbelief.

I thought some more and came to the conclusion that these people have no dignity, no real pride/respect whatsoever that they derive from their work. They fool themselves by demanding a physical show of respect from people who are soft targets. The entire work culture is 180 degrees from what I am used to as a s/w engr. I have never been told to "stand up" or sit properly with seniors around...(I am sure Bob Wyman can give many examples of supposed "disrespect" :)) )

The entire concept of "respect" is ill defined for those poor chaps. For me respect is what one gains through what one has done. If they get my bike I ll surely have some respect for them for a job well done but not shaking my leg is not my idea of it. And it feels sick when you choose to sit there and obey dickheads.