Irk, ire, idiot



I met the Police Commissioner (cyber crime department) in the train yesterday. He seemed to be much harried with all the crimes and other murders happening with the assistance of networking websites and other sites.
He might’ve seen me reading Memoirs of a geisha and must have assumed that I would be interested in rantings, as he tapped at my knee and said, “Good book,” nodding his head like he had spent hours on his job poring over the book.
He must have felt miffed when I just nodded, gave him a polite smile and turned back to my book, because he said, “Do you know who I am?” with the air that he was actually the blackbuck that Salman Khan had shot.
Before I could reply, he introduced himself as the commissioner of police, in charge of the cyber crime department and went on with his saga of how the Internet is a very bad thing and how crimes have gone up on it.
I made my eyes a little big to show my surprise and gratefulness for being allowed to talk to His Highness The Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime Department) and then continued with my book.
“Do you know there are 10 lakh dirty, unethical profiles are there on Orkut?”
I nodded, not taking my eyes away from the book.
“Half of them are homos.”
It seemed as if someone had pushed him onto a chair with an electric seat, for he sat up in a start. “Did you hear that Naval officer who was married but was going around with another girl, whom he met on Orkut and then she later came to know that he was married and wanted to break off with him, but the guy killed him?”
I hummed. I didn’t care if it satisfied him, but he droned on anyways.
“Are you on Orkut?”
I nodded.
“I hope you do not put your own pictures and personal details like email address or PIN code or phone number of vehicle number or PAN card number or ATM code or bank account number on the dirty Internet.”
I said no.
“Thank god,” he said, brushing his hand against his brow as if he was wiping away sweat after recovering from a very chronic bout of diarrhea. “At least some youngsters are alert and knowledgeable.”
Memoirs of a geisha is so interesting!
I thought he understood my lack of interest in his jabber when he started looking out of the window. I soon got to know that he had only been racking his brain for more topics to entertain me with.
“You know Adnan Patrawala, right?”
I said I had only read about him in the newspapers and did not really ‘know’ him.
“Ya ya, that only I’m saying,” he said. “See how dangerous thing it is. It, I mean Orkut should in fact, be called danjurious.”
He thought I did not understand his pun. So he said, “Danjurious means dangerous plus injurious.” Cheeky grin.
I nodded, wondering whether he could see the smoke billowing out of my ears.
“I think I will ban this site.”
I was already livid. Now this was getting on my nerves.
“What do you think?”

I looked into his eyes. I stood up without taking my eyes off his. I could see him looking at me. I stretched up, took my bag off the luggage rack, opened the zipper, put my book inside, closed the zipper and started towards the door.
“Okay, you are going, but tell me what you think about banning the site and blocking it and disallowing people from using it?”
Shut up.
The train arrived at my station. From the corner of my eye, I saw the cop shifting seats and sitting by the window now, his elbow propped up on the sill, unmindful of the red spittle on it and glaring at me.
I stepped onto the station and walked with a satisfactory air about me as the train glided past me.