Going round in circles to pay a fine

one seemed to know where the seized vehicles had been towed till my daughter had the brainwave to call 100 — who, indeed, proved surprisingly helpful. The market was now a “no tolerance zone” she was informed, and she was given an address in Sheikh Sarai from where claimants could collect the spoils of the drive, everything from cars and bikes to a shoe-repairwallah’s tools, a chooran vendor’s vials or a florist’s blooms. Having found the place, she was told she required a “parchi” from the “authority” to release the car.

The officials at the MCD office the following morning were helpful, I suppose. First, they required an affidavit from Sharma Documents, across the road, where the said Sharmaji tried to cope with the rush single-handedly. The queue of applicants required affidavits for a change of address, or rent agreement, or there were appellants like my daughter, who needed to file a list of goods removed by the MCD “from a public place” against promise of never repeating the offence.

Some photocopying of documents later, it was back to the MCD office, room 17, where Kishanji proved missing. Try him in room 14, next to the canteen, we were advised, but he had “just gone outside, find him there”, we were told, “call his name aloud”. Wise words since Kishanji was in the process of being hoisted off to a site where other “offenders” might be executing such serious crimes as operating a barber’s salon under a shady tree. “You got me just in time,” Kishanji said to my ingratiating daughter.

Back to room 17, now in search of Mohitji to calculate the fine. When he arrived some while later, a crowd surrounded him. Mohitji complained about the nature of his work that was giving him blood pressure; he said his sight was weakening, at which an applicant suggested home remedies such as saunf, ginger and honey, to be consumed every evening. “Write it down,” a peeved Mohitji ordered him. When he reached my daughter’s affidavit, we discovered that Sharma Documents had turned her into “Ramlal” whose “three baskets and a weighing scale” had been appropriated. Since she was clearly not Ramlal, a fresh application was called for, which had to be signed by “sahib” in the room next door.

Having started the process all over again, she required all the signatures once more, so when a final official signed his approval, we could only sigh in relief as we joined a queue to pay a fine of ~4,463. The driver was then dispatched with the challan and the car collected. My daughter has since declined to drive in the city, thereby reducing the traffic on MCD’s roads by a count of one.