Why freedom is a pair of skinny jeans for this woman cop
Freedom is a pair of skinny jeans, lipstick during the day time, fitted feminine blouses, open hair, women's footwear, a handbag and a drink any time I want. Doesn't take much to please women like us anymore! Imagine this: khaki-colored uniform with or without embellishments that does not flatter the form, hair tied up above the collar encased in a hairnet, beret in the right jaunty angle, Oxford brown shoes only to be replaced by canvas work boots, a belt so wide and worn so tight that it ensures no movement of the weapon perched on it or proper breathing (I am reminded of whale bone corsets here, though I have no first hand experience), pockets filled with odds and ends including a pen, phone, a small notebook and anything and everything else. After nearly nine years of a near monastic life cut off from old and close friends some important realisations dawned on me. Actually, it was more like proof of some things we heard in the police academy but did not really believe. That we can never make new friends anymore; that we lose perspective; that we can never have a regular life anymore. That some of us will start eating, sleeping, breathing the cop life so much that we would lose any other identity that we may have had the potential for or had to begin with!
It didn't take me more than five months to realise that policing as a profession does not really accord access to the better people in society; not unless they become victims of crime. In which case, they don't want to befriend you; they just want their life restored before "it" happened. Police is almost a scavenger for the society. Cleaning up the act and sweeping all the crimes properly investigated and delivered before the judiciary.
Don't get me wrong. I love my work; so much so I usually forget to eat my meals on time, I can stand for hours in the hot sun (though I'm not a big fan of the tan "V" I have on my neck), I don't mind walking kilometers in wet shoes, I don't know what a spa looks like anymore, I have no problems with tanned or cracked skin, finger nails regularly have grease under them, toe nails are cut shorter than a crew-cut on the hair of a cadet in the Army. Late last year certain catastrophic, in my opinion, events took place which I witnessed first hand. I haven't been able to process them as yet. It might take a few more years, but the way in which it has been so quickly forgotten left me more in shock. It will be remembered only on its "anniversary". Perhaps on that day when I got out the funk I was in and started to run again that I realised how completely cut off I had become. Suddenly, I had no friends to talk to either in the service and out of it.
I added a couple of days leave with some official work and landed up in Delhi. Opting to stay at an old friend's place, someone I hadn't seen for 12 years (yeah, thank god for social media) I landed at a non-police set up for the first time in nine years. I had gotten so used to the clinically established officers' mess without any personal touch that I was truly moved at the effort put by my friend to make me comfortable. Even the aesthetically-readied little lamp in a doll's dress for lampshade just floored me. She and her man Friday, Ramkali moved a whole half of a heavy bed into the room, cleaned it up and furnished it. I must say, it was the best digs I'd been in for quite a while.
What followed was a surreal experience mixed with some official work, some meeting with colleagues and a whole lot of fun with friends both old and new. Somewhere along the way, I found my way back into the humanity we all strive to preserve in the course of policing and my sanity too.
Ramkali was a revelation as far as the strength of women go even in the Indian circles. With two boys and a husband who mostly depended on her she bulldozes through life; including that of her Crusoe's. The whole wheat paranthas she makes are absolutely out if this world that makes up for all her not so witty retorts. Added to that list were a few other gorgeous women I met: a bridal couture designer, a corporate lawyer, an actor. How refreshing to meet such women, though I wasn't sure if my life was more a novelty to them as much as theirs was to me.
Despite the total break from my routine, I did go on and meet a few friends slogging it out in the big bad city as the residents voted for a change in government. While one relied heavily on neon-lit fibre glass hoardings to extol the virtues of going saffron, the other was propped up by your everyman - the barber, the hawker, the autorickshaw wala - on their heads: visible loud and clear. The police on their part followed the time tested routine of bandobast for the security of the polling booths, the safety of the EVMs, the wellbeing of the voters and the safe transit of the polling officials with the polling material, with a few innovative tweaks from the lessons learnt from the last time the great Indian wedding had rolled out; in this case less than a year ago.
All said and done whether it is freedom or the old ball and chain, I'd pick my responsibilities every time as will each member of the police who believes in his or work. It is a promise. Freedom is still a pair of skinny jeans and everything else I cannot do every day that I work. I am grateful for the friends who set me up in their spare room when I take a break though!