[muni]

TheOne®: Sam did the right thing. Please dont feel sorry for those boys.

An unfortunate and unpleasant thing to happen. Forgive and forget is what Jenny has done ( rightly so..) and Sam i know how it feels when these things happen. Am glad the police did what they did.

Shifting focus to those pics, the pics are fantastic. Those pics with the both of you looks picture perfect. A pat on the back to the guy who took the pics.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Wow... This thread really got ahead of me, and I only mentally caught up with you both at the Taj.

And what a ride, along with the two of you, that has turned out to be!

Amazing!

[lurker]

the baby taj images are quite cute, and the best of the lot in my opinion.

About the incident at the Taj, this slapping people on the face is a peculiarly North Indian habit I am yet to come to terms with. I don't know whether the Police was doing this stunt to impress someone on their efficiency or to genuinely corner the blokes who were repeat-offenders literally caught in the act. But since this slapping has not started yesterday, and this voyeurism at Taj and other places has not started yesterday either, it doesn't seem slapping people around is helping too much .. is it ?

Sam should have prevented the cops from slapping those kids around, it's just a show-off trick and there is no point in scarring those kids (already compromised) conscience even further. It would have been the right thing to do. But being a hot day, it seems he lost his cool as well.

In my younger days, I had this habit of playfully slapping the puppy dog in my house on the face, but my mother always used to say it isn't a good habit to slap anything or anyone on the face. being a person who ocassionaly said things with deep meaning, the more I think about it the more sense it makes.

but it is really amazing that for Jenny, there has been so much information to process in so little a time. heeheehee

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by TheOne®

I hold up the camera pointing at them and at Sam, and OF COURSE all of them come running. Cheeeese and click! Here we go.

OK here is the picture lol

[Sam Kapasi]

We get down. It’s almost time to leave for Delhi. I collect my shoes from the shoe-keeper. Jenny is sitting on the bench next to me.
She bends down to take her shoe covers off. As I slip my second shoe on, I am aware of a man standing very close.
I look up in time to see him taking a photo of Jenny’s cleavage at a distance of 2 feet, straight up front.

That’s it. That's bloody it.

Everything snaps in me and I stand up, swiftly grabbing his mobile with one hand and grabbing his neck in my other. I’m going to kill him right here.
I want to beat him to a pulp but alarm bells are ringing in my head.

He is not alone. I can see a stirring of boys behind him. It is not safe for me to get into a fight with Jenny here with me.
I am at a National monument, surrounded by tourists from around the world. Do I want them to see this?
Besides, if there is a fight, I would get into trouble too. I don’t want that.

I need the police.

I look up swiftly and see some people gathering, anticipating a fight. I ask for the police, some guys point me towards a constable. I drag the guy (he is about half my size, I’m a big guy and very very mad right now) and his friends are trying to keep up.

Yes? Says the constable rising. He is very large and fit for a regular police officer. Later I notice that he is CISF. Of course, this is the Taj, they are prepared for terrorists and worse.

I quickly explain to him in Hindi what happened. I am angry and cannot stop the flow of MCs and BCs from my mouth. Yeh hamaare mehmaanon ke saath aisa vaahiyapan karte hain!! Inko vajeh se saare hindustaniyon ka naam kharaab hota hai.

Kiski photo li. Mere Mangetar ki, I say. Aap kuchch kar sakte hain?

Inko seedha kardenge sir, lekin aap thane aayenge?

Yes, chalo.

The defiance of the boys has turned to water. 5 of them are now walking with us. I’m srill holding onto the phone, a Chinese no-brand phone, shaking with anger.
I now realize Jenny is completely bewildered. She has no clue what’s going on. I quickly explain. While she is annoyed, she is still confused.
So they will go to jail?
No. I keep walking faster. I want them to be taught a lesson. I am ashamed of their behaviour, it reflects on my people. I am angry because he took a picture of her in that position and I love her. I want them to pay. She follows, but I can see she is confused. I am simply caught in the heat of the moment, my brain has stopped working.

Maaf karo bhaiyya galti ho gayi.
Galti se aadmi gir jaata hai. Koi cheez tod deta hai. Galti se aadmi photo nahi le sakta hai. Main tumhe seedha kar ke hi ghar jaaoonga.
Another tries to speak to Jenny. The constable asks him to shut up.
A minute later he tries again. The constable swings around/ Tujhe bola na MC chup KAR and slaps him hard.
So this is what it’s going to be like. I walk on with mixed feelings.
Should I have broken his phone on the ground and waited to see what happens next? Should I have hit him and created a free for all melee?
Should I have looked the other way, avoided trouble and let this man walk away with a photo of my woman’s cleavage? Certainly NOT!!
I am doing the right thing.
I turn to Jenny, hoping she can read my mind. She looks shocked. She is still recovering from the velocity and sheer force of the slap she just saw delivered. I turn back in front and walk. I am going through with this. I have to. They need to know that we cannot treat our tourists like this. I am suffering from double indignation and anger.

At the station inside the Taj, a Gurkha gentleman is in charge. He is tough and strong, built like a commando, pants tucked into his boots. These guys look hardcore.

The constable explains briefly and quickly. We are offered seats while the boys stand. Aap Indian hai?
Jee.
Aur yeh?
Meri mangetar hai. I say defiantly. Pehli baar India aayi hai, pehli baar taj dikhane laya hoon. Taaki yeh lafange is tarah ka bartav kar sake uske saath. Yeh ladke pata nahi kitna foreignero ko pareshaan karte hain. Yeh kitni sharm ki baat hai.
Yeh hamare mehmaan hai. Laakho rupye kharch karke hamara desh dekhne aate hai. Yeh hai hamara atithi devo bhava?
It is our moral DUTY to make them comfortable and THIS is what they do? I am shaking with anger and close to tears.

Hmm.

He looks at her and back at me.

Suddenly he snaps up, stands straight, runs towards them and slaps all and hits all the boys simultaneously!! Another policeman joins in, whacking them across their faces and heads.
MY ears are ringing with the force of this.
CHALO MC MURGA BANO!!
KOI EK HILA TOH YEH DANDA GHUSA DOONGA!!
One boy stirs, the baton lands squarely across his spine.

This is brutal.

Another moves, he gets hit really hard on his behind. I realize Jenny has closed her eyes and is shaking. This is not going well.
Kaunsa tha?

I point.
Kahaan ka hai tu?
Some village in UP, I forget.
BC teri shaadi hui hai?
Nahi.
Behen hai?
Haan.
Kahan hai?
Ghar pe.
WHACK!! BEHEN KO GHAR PE CHUPATA HAI PARDE MAIN AUR IDHAR AAKE DOOSRE AURAT KI PHOTO KHEENCHTA HAI?? MC!!
In a few minutes they are all standing with their hands and legs apart, wincing in pain.
One boy grabs Jenny’s feet.
“Do you forgive him Jenny?”
“OF COURSE!! Please let them go,make it stop”
I turn to the officer. He has discovered more firang photos on the phone and is hopping mad. BC tum log is liye taj mahal ate ho!!
6 hafte ke liye inko andar kar doonga, he says, eyes blazing. Maarenge itna kil halwa ban jaayega badan ka. MC! He hits them again.

Sir, buss.

He's not stopping. Sir, buss kijiye.

He stops. I will have to write a report for him (Let off with a warning, please do not prosecute further etc)
While I am writing, the ACP enters. The officers stand straight and suddenly the whole melee starts again for the ACPs benefit. They are murgas again getting beaten and brutalized.
This is not going as planned.

I explain all the the ACP quickly adding, Yeh log kaafi maar kha chuke hain.

IN a little while (that seemed like an eternity) they are writing apologies with bruised hands. He is making them promise that they will spend the rest of their lives helping foreigners in India.

Jenny and I leave. She is obviously in shock.
Is this how the police treat someone for a small crime? You get beaten up like this?
No. You get beaten up depending on the nature of your crime and on who you are, how you speak, how you look and dress. You and I will never get beaten up at a station.
But that’s UNFAIR!
That is how it is.

We walk in silence. I didn’t want this to happen. I know I did the right thing. They have been taught a lesson and they will tell every one of their peers not to harass the foreigners again.
But I did not want TheOne® to leave with this memory. But it’s happened now.

We walk some more in silence. Then a funny and sweet incident happens which was a little embarrassing for me. I won’t tell you about this but I am 100% sure Jenny will, lol.

It lightens us up and we walk back to the van. Soon we forget the ugly episode and are walking through Agra, arm in arm.
Perhaps it would have been more heroic to break his phone. She would have handled that better too. But things could have gone wrong from there. It could have been me against 5 boys. I can handle that, but with Jenny by my side? What if things hadn't gone well? Atleast this way we sat decently in the station and left with some honour.

nevermind, this is life. We are here on a beautiful holiday, a crazy eventful wonderful holiday. And we're happy to be with each other. And that is all that matters.

The way back to delhi is uneventful, full of snores and the end of Dil Chahta Hai.

We spend a peaceful and tired evening at home in Delhi. Just some Chinese take out and a glass of wine. We’re tired, it’s been a long day. Tomorrow we will drive to Neemrana. I am super excited.

[Sam Kapasi]

2 nice pictures for you.

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by lurker

Sam should have prevented the cops from slapping those kids around, it's just a show-off trick and there is no point in scarring those kids (already compromised) conscience even further. It would have been the right thing to do. But being a hot day, it seems he lost his cool as well.

You try acting cool at a time when someone is trying to take indecent photos of your loved one in front of you for his voyeuristic pleasure & then say this. It's all fair for us to sit in our armchairs at home & comment how one should not have done this or that but what goes on when it happens in real life to you is something you learn only when you experience it. Trust me, this is the least a person could do given the circumstances & the situation.

And there is absolutely no comparison IMO netween slapping your puppy & slapping someone behaving indecently with your fiance. Please don't even make that comparison.

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

We walk in silence. I didn’t want this to happen. I know I did the right thing. They have been taught a lesson and they will tell every one of their peers not to harass the foreigners again.
But I did not want TheOne® to leave with this memory. But it’s happened now.

You did the right thing of course, there is no doubt about that. Some times one has to ensure some painful scenes in the process but it's all part of the picture.

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Perhaps it would have been more heroic to break his phone. She would have handled that better too. But things could have gone wrong from there. It could have been me against 5 boys. I can handle that, but with Jenny by my side? What if things hadn't gone well? Atleast this way we sat decently in the station and left with some honour.

No it would have not been advisable to break the phone. If you got into a fight your only proof were the pics in the phone & breaking it would take that away & it would be a case of you word against the 5 boys. Not to mention it would be an even worse display to start a fight in public, justified or not. Let the police deal with it, that's the best policy up here at least.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by lurker

tBut since this slapping has not started yesterday, and this voyeurism at Taj and other places has not started yesterday either, it doesn't seem slapping people around is helping too much .. is it ?

Sam should have prevented the cops from slapping those kids around, it's just a show-off trick and there is no point in scarring those kids (already compromised) conscience even further.

lurker - I can assure you those guys will not be taking any more photos of firang chokris again. I may not agree with the method but it wont happen again.
So in their case, it has helped.
If I had to take them to the station and they had been let off, they would have laughed at me and taken a photo of the next firang.

Lurker put yourself in my shoes. Imagine walking with your woman and these men taking pictures of her at point blank range. Now tell me, would you have done anything different from me? Woould you have let them go? Or asked the policeman not to hit them? What can the CISF do? Fine them? They can't pay!! There is no designated fine for taking a picture like that.
Lock them up? 6 weeks in a CISF lock up?

What would you have me do?

And I do not think it was a show-off trick. That is simply not a nice thing to say. Right or wrong, both the policemen sympathised with my anger and felt my indignation. They had nobody to show off to. This was all done in a closed room, not in public.

[wheeler]

Sam, what you did was perfectly right. Those #%$^@&* deserved the treatment.

Keeping that unfortunate incident aside, the pictures you've attached are really amazing. The shot of the Taj in post# 246 is really wonderful. And the picture of Jenny in the arched doorway too. looking forward to more snaps. and more write ups.

[safari_lover]

Nice pics and great narration by both of you.

Sam, you did the best possible thing. You were mad at the boys but you still had the sense to take them over to the police. That was the most appropriate thing to do.

[lurker]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

lurker - I can assure you those guys will not be taking any more photos of firang chokris again. I may not agree with the method but it wont happen again.
So in their case, it has helped.
If I had to take them to the station and they had been let off, they would have laughed at me and taken a photo of the next firang.

Lurker put yourself in my shoes. Imagine walking with your woman and these men taking pictures of her at point blank range. Now tell me, would you have done anything different from me? Woould you have let them go? Or asked the policeman not to hit them? What can the CISF do? Fine them? They can't pay!! There is no designated fine for taking a picture like that.
Lock them up? 6 weeks in a CISF lock up?

What would you have me do?

And I do not think it was a show-off trick. That is simply not a nice thing to say. Right or wrong, both the policemen sympathised with my anger and felt my indignation. They had nobody to show off to. This was all done in a closed room, not in public.

Sam, I do not object to what you did on that occassion. You approached the police, instead of taking affairs into your own hands or destroying the mobile which would have been a mistake since it gives the voyeurs the chance to claim moral high ground. And who knows they could also have more of their kind waiting outside to take revenge on you etc.

I was looking at the affair from a different angle . . I imagined putting my father in your position and thought he would have blown his top and acted far worse than you could imagine.

It was my mother who thought differently and opened my eyes to the softer side . .


it's that female touch . .

[Sideways]

This is for "TheOne" - Jenny, I am really sorry you had to face such an awkward situation. I know it's difficult for you to understand how certain things are dealt with in our country. I am sure you will begin to understand better once you move here.

It's not that the authorities are inhumane. From experience they have understood to tackle a situation given the circumsatnces and people invovled. Thats just the way it works.

Sam - I would have done exactly what you did. It's a shame this had to happen on your wonderful holiday, but I hope the rest your travels more than made up for this fiasco.

TheCouple - This is a wonderful thread and I am enjoying myself thoroughly. God Bless you both.

[Hurrycane12]

Sam you did the right thing; show no mercy to these chaps. I have experienced a similar thing at Bangalore Central couple of years ago; while I was shopping with my wife and her friend; here the guys were educated S/W Enggs, so its not that only the illiterate behave in such a manner; here we had the so called highly educated behave like illiterate morons. I fully understand how you would have felt in the situation you were in. I appreciate that you did not take the law in your own hand by smashing the phone or hitting these those chaps, being locals would have made life difficult for you and Jenny.

We have been growing in leaps as far as technology is considered and have few people around us who are not using it for the right cause but rather do such indecent things.

Jenny sorry about this unfortunate incident and the trauma you had to go through.

[Samurai]

Jenny, I had not replied all along while enjoying this thread. But I have to say this. Sam did the right thing, he caught some sick people and handed over to the police. For once police too did the right thing and handled the situation in the only way these sick people could be cured. Next time these people will think very hard before pulling out the camera in the wrong place. In the Indian cultural context, this kind of fear works very well.

Sam could have taken the law into his hands by beating them first hand, most people would have done that, but he didn't, which is highly commendable. He could have just ignored, but that would have further encouraged those people.

I remember following the incidence of the caning of an American teenager in Singapore in 1994, it made huge headlines in USA. Although the US government was against the caning, I remember that lots of my colleagues in my work place, callers local radio/TV shows, supported the caning saying let's send all our juvenile offenders to Singapore. They were quite sick of the lax punishment meted out to juvenile offenders in USA.

Michael P. Fay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[SumitB]

I had to comment on this incident. Sam what you did was perfectly correct and was as per the situation demanded. I am infact amazed that you did not break his phone which would have been (as you said) heroic, but would have been done by 90% of people (if they really cared for their woman) but in the end, would have made them guilty. I am also amazed that you did not land some blows on the boy yourself (which the other 10% would have done), not caring about the consequences. By calling on the cops, you took the most logical and intelligent step. You also had the phone in your hand which was later proof to his crime. This shows your love for Jenny while at the same time exhibits your character and courage.

I wonder how many of us would have the mental stability to keep away from landing into a fight after such an incident.

I am also amazed at the integrity of the cops. Do such cops exist in India. Bravo.

Well done Sam.