got delayed. Anyway better late than never.
This post is for those using the bike parking facility at Chennai Central railway station.
For years, bike users entered & exited the railway premises by the same entrance (in
pic below), which leads to the road that lies in front of the Moore Market reservation
complex building.
For the past many months, I noticed (since I park my bike here on my weekly visit to
Kerala) that while entry is allowed, the RPF personnel do not allow bike-users to exit
via this gate. You can see the barricade with a big "No Entry" sign in above snap.
So, what most people do is cross the car parking area in front of the Moore Market
complex and get onto the main road. The poles in the pic below are spaced such that
bikes can easily pass through and this was what I also used to do till last Monday.
Things changed when an RPF (Railway Protection Force) guy in plain clothes stepped
in front of my bike & told me that I had violated a "No Entry" sign and thus I would be
charged for that offence. It was another matter that not only was the "No Entry" sign
not conforming to signage rules, but was printed on a thin sliver of paper, which was
intentionally designed to not be visible. Can you make out the sign on in the snap below?
Hint : It's that white part seen in the diagonal centre of the barricade.
He reached forward to grab the bike keys, but having spent most of my life in Chennai,
I know that this is one of the first things a cop here does on stopping you and thus I was
quicker in not letting him get to the keys.
From a previous run-in with the RPF guys years ago, I knew that my day was screwed,
because unlike state police who charge a spot fine for traffic offenses, these guys do not
collect the fine directly. Instead, they charge a case and take you to the railway court,
where a magistrate asks you if you indeed committed the violation and a fine imposed.
I was asked to come to the RPF office at 12:30PM, which I did. But as I feared, when
the whole drama ended, it was 4:30PM and I was drained - physically and mentally.
All this waste of time for just 200 bucks. I would have gladly paid them 2-3 times that
amount, if they would have just wrote out a challan and let me go.
Anyway, now that I went through this long ordeal (made even more miserable by the
hot sun), I hope none of you have to. The whole idea of this post and pics is that none
of you or your friends have to go through this ordeal, which is not really about ensuring
orderly movement of vehicles, but a sham to snare unsuspecting people into a trap and
screwing their happiness.
And maybe a chance for the RPF guys to show that they are doing their job (which as
the name of their organisation indicates is Protection of Railway property), at which
they are really inept, given the fact that terrorists are able to plonk bombs in trains at
will and dacoits are able to loot passengers on moving trains. Heck somewhere in North
India, some guys even hijacked a train, which would show how good these guys are at
their job.
Ofcourse, they will never get around to catching these real threats and to compensate
for this ineptitude, they will round up a few guys for violating a barely-visible No Entry
board which would be intentionally well hidden from sight. Or maybe spend time taking
bribes from some poor tea/coffee vendor who is trying to make a living.
BTW, I noticed that almost all the RPF guys involved in this sham of an operation were Malayalees, which did not really surprise me given the average Malayalee's aptitude to
be incredibly innovative in 'discharging' their duties, while not really being effective at
the assigned job.
So, avoid falling into this trap setup by the RPF and also inform your friends and anyone
else who might use the railway premises. Don't tell me you were not warned.
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