Coming from Gurgaon to Bhiwadi I generally turn left from Bilaspur crossing and take country road to bhiwadi. This is a 12 km narrow road which passes through three villages. It saves time, there is negligible traffic, the scenary is beautiful and it takes me right to my destination in bhiwadi.
Yesterday, while turning left I saw a very young policeman standing with a shoulder bag. His hesitant swing of hand showed he wanted to ask for a lift but by that moment I had crossed.
Few moments later a motorcycle overtook me and this policeman was at pillion. He got his lift. Few kms of drive and I had to turn right and again this fellow was standing at the turn. The lift was perhaps till at this point.
Now he raised his hand and I stopped. As he hopped into the car, I saw him well built but lean, thin pencil mostache and with a typical Haryanvi dialect.
As we drove through narrow country roads, we talked. He was posted in Bilaspur police station and was given a daytime duty in this village where I was to drop him. The distance is around 15 kms and there is no public transport available on these back roads. So the option for him is to either use a personal vehicle which he couldn’t afford or take lift as he was doing today. There is no official vehicle available for him. So everyday he spends an hour reaching his post and in the evening it is same story. When he reaches he will relieve his colleague and same thing in the evening when he will have to wait till he is relieved.
As Bilaspur police station has no police lines but a simple barrack, his official house is in police lines, Gurgaon, which is 35 kms from Bilaspur chowk. So in the evening, this fellow is to wait till he is relieved, take lift or multiple lifts to Bilaspur chowk, decide on spending night either at police station barrack or go to his house which will take another hour on public transport and start back in the morning for same routine. And in between he is to arrange his own food in case he is late and mess is closed. For his duty in this village he brings packed food, either self cooked or outsourced.
His family is in sonipat which is another 180 kms from his police sation. Normally he can spend few hours only with his family due to maximum time spent on transportation. Here too, emergency duties keep cropping in and his weekend leave gets cancelled often.
These days there is some communal tensions going on in this area and then independence day is approaching. He knows for next 3 weeks he won’t be meeting his wife and kids.
Apart from struggling with transportation, he is supposed to perform his duty with full enrgy and alertness. His body and eyes didn’t show any fatigue but his eyes had different story to tell.
He has to balance his personal life with his professional life. In professional life, being a junior without connection at right places, he is tossed around depending on situations. Then he has a public image to defend as most of the image ofpolice force rests on his behaviour in public.
Public is continuously testing his patience. One wrong behaviour, one wrong action and he gets captured on mobile videos and then he must face public trials, media trials and trials within his own police force.
Every day he has to struggle – struggle to go through his daily routine, struggle to balance his professional duty with public conduct.
We normally see a policeman with a suspicion and try to avoid them. We normally do not have a positive image of them. Yesterday I felt a junior policeman carrying lot of monkeys on his back. He was a simple, honest hard working man just wanting to work for his family like most of us. There were no lofty ideals and patriotic adrenil rush though it is at the core of his job and training.
I dropped him at his destination, saw a genuine gratitude in his eyes. I silently wished him good luck and drove on to my struggles and challenges.
Everyone have to struggle for himself & their family but sometimes it may dangerous to give lift to unknown person