Fleeting Thoughts By Ashvini Ranjan
Before leaving the Loyal World Supermarket in V.V. Mohalla, I carefully rechecked my shopping list. My memory, I must confess, has been deteriorating with remarkable speed and consistency.
The previous week I had returned home triumphantly thinking that I had purchased every item on the shopping list.
“Where are the potatoes?” my wife had asked.
Thinking on my feet, I replied with great confidence, “There weren’t any potatoes anywhere in Mysuru today.”
She looked at me.
She didn’t blink.
She didn’t argue.
She simply looked.
That silence lasted barely five seconds, but it felt longer than my university examinations.
“I forgot,” I admitted meekly.
Silence, I discovered, is a devastating cross-examination technique.
Just as I reached my car, my phone rang.
“Can you please buy a few lemons from the vegetable shop on Kalidasa Road while coming home?” my wife asked.
“Lemons… lemons… lemons…” I repeated to myself like a sacred mantra lest my brain quietly replace them with mangoes.
Finding lemons, however, was far easier than finding a parking space.
Had everyone parked their vehicles sensibly, Mysuru probably had enough parking for every car in the city. Unfortunately, each driver seemed determined to prove that geometry was an optional subject.
Cars occupied one-and-a-half parking spaces.
I drove through every by-lane. “No Parking” boards glared at me from every compound wall, threatening consequences !
I found myself back at the beginning of Kalidasa Road. I was once again exactly where I had started, except that I had burnt enough E20 petrol to keep the petrol bunk where I fill petrol, in business.
Finally, temptation won.
“It’ll take less than five minutes,” I told myself.
For seniors I thought a short term wrong parking was a pardonable offence.
I double parked.
Locked the car.
Took precisely three steps.
Then destiny arrived with flashing lights.
A Police patrol vehicle pulled alongside.
Its public-address system crackled into life.
“Owner of vehicle number…”
That number sounded strangely familiar. It was mine.
The officer was asking me to remove my vehicle immediately.
I approached him with what I hoped was my most innocent smile.
“Sir, may I just run across and buy two lemons? I’ll be back in less than five minutes.”
Without even looking at me he replied, still speaking through the loudspeaker for the benefit of half of Mysuru, “If educated people like you break traffic rules, how can you expect others to obey them?”
I had been promoted to the status of a ‘shining example’ !
Several pedestrians turned to inspect this highly educated criminal.
I decided discretion was the better part of valour and retreated with whatever dignity I had left.
At home, I narrated the embarrassment I was subjected to.
My wife, perhaps feeling slightly sorry for me, offered to walk the half-kilometre to Kalidasa Road to buy lemons.
Together we returned.
She entered the crowded vegetable shop while I stood outside talking on my mobile phone.
Nearby, another gentleman had parked his car exactly where I had earlier committed my grave offence. I found the car convenient to lean on as I waited for my wife to finish buying lemons.
It appeared he too was probably a believer in five-minute pardonable offence. Suddenly, like a recurring nightmare…the same patrol vehicle appeared.
The loudspeaker sprang to life again.
I ignored it.
After all, this time I was innocent. This was not my car.
The announcement became louder.
Then harsher.
Then very personal.
The officer had recognised me and assumed that I was the owner of the illegally parked car.
This time I wasn’t merely an educated offender. I had apparently graduated into a habitual offender.
Still talking on my phone, I continued to ignore him.
My silence only increased his blood pressure.
Finally he shouted, “Remove your car immediately mister !”
Without thinking, I replied, “I can’t.”
That was the wrong answer. The officer jumped out of the patrol vehicle and marched towards me with the determination of a man about to rescue civilisation itself.
A crowd gathered instantly. Crowds possess an uncanny instinct. They can smell drama from two streets away.
Pointing dramatically at me, the officer announced, “People like him are the reason for Mysuru’s traffic chaos!”
I briefly wondered whether I should apologise on behalf of the entire city’s motorists.
Just then… the real owner of the car emerged from the vegetable shop carrying two bulging bags of vegetables.
Surveying the scene with remarkable speed, he quietly slipped into the driver’s seat… started the engine… and vanished before anyone could notice the disappearing act.
The officer froze.
His finger was still pointing at me.
Only now there was no offending car.
And no offender.
Except me who had committed the terrible crime of standing beside the wrong vehicle.
The colour on the officer’s face changed faster than a traffic signal.
My remaining perfectly calm made matters even worse for him.
Finally he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t your car?”
I smiled.
‘It is your turn to feel embarrassed,’ I said. There was a brief silence.
Then his stern expression softened and broke into a smile.
K£ï ¸Ágï ¤ÃªÀÅ? (to say ‘you fooled me’). He stretched out his hand.
We are even I told myself !
We shook hands.
The crowd dispersed, slightly disappointed that the drama had ended without an arrest. I had missed by a whisker making headline news in all local newspapers with a possible headline reading ‘Educated Habitual Offender’ arrested !
Just then my wife emerged triumphantly carrying the lemons.
“What’s all this crowd ?” she asked.
“Oh… nothing much,” a real culprit escaped and the Police caught a wrong guy, I replied.
She had been barely twenty feet away through the entire episode. And somehow managed to miss every moment of the drama. Literally.
It had all unfolded behind her back.
This post was published on August 11, 2026 7:30 pm