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Now, bicycles are considered vehicles in India, although they usually enjoy the freedom of movement normally restricted to pedestrians. They can ride on footpaths and even squeeze between cars and trucks in a traffic jam. However, it was against the law to ride a bicycle up a one way-street although you can usually walk up one. Once I came to know that such signs were absent in my city, I decided to deploy my cunning plan to expose what I thought was a serious defect in the implementation of the legal system. My plan used a bicycle, but since I didn't have my own bicycle till 1980, I had to hire one from a nearby bicycle hire shop for a rupee an hour. I estimated that I might need it for about half an hour.

I then mounted my bicycle and rode to the nearest one-way street. Almost every one-way street in India has a policeman in it, whose only duty, apparently, was to catch drivers going in the wrong direction. I momentarily stopped at the entrance to the one-way street and ensured that it did indeed have one. I then rode my bike about half way into the street, taking care to keep out of sight of the policeman. Once I had done this, I turned my bike around and rode back to the entrance of the street, this time making sure that the policeman saw me. My intent in doing so was this: The policeman would arrest me, and I would get a chance to argue my case in court. I could tell the judge that I was innocent because I didn't know I was on a one-way street when I entered it. Regardless of the street's suspicious similarity to a one-way street, were it one, I would say, I am not liable to be prosecuted because of the legal loophole. I could already picture myself emerging victoriously from court, with journalists congratulating me on this brilliant expos\'e. I would have offers from prestigious law schools which would look forward to have me join them once I finished schooling. I suppose I must have been intoxicated with these fantasies because I failed to attract the policeman's attention when I rode back to the street entrance. He seemed totally disinterested in my antics. How dare he! Wasn't I paying him, indirectly, to be vigilant and catch trespassers of the law?

So I went back again, this time even further into the street and made my way back on the bicycle to the entrance, trying to be as conspicuous as possible. I was so sure that the policeman saw me this time, but still he didn't appear perturbed. He didn't even make the slightest effort to dissuade me from doing this. How callous, I thought! What if an oncoming car had struck me when I was going the wrong way? So I decided to really make my presence felt. I rode in again and this time, on my way back, I rang my bicycle bell loudly several times so as to give the impression that I was extremely annoyed at all these other vehicles coming in the other direction and blocking my path. My signalling in this manner seemed to have little effect upon the cars and trucks, and much less even, on the policeman. So I rode the bike up very close to him and rang the bell again just as I passed him in front. This time it seemed to work. Maybe he was in a temporary stupor and my ringing awakened him.

He reached out and grabbed my bicycle and pulled me aside. He leaned the bicycle up against a wall, locked it, put the key in his pocket, and continued with his job as though nothing had happened. I was shocked and dumbstruck. Wasn't he going to arrest me and serve me a court order or something?

``Excuse me sir,'' I ventured in all false timidity and feigned innocence. ``Why have you locked away my bicycle?''

``Hrrrmph'' snorted the policeman indifferently. ``You aren't supposed to drive up a one-way street.''

``The bicycle isn't mine sir'' I requested politely. ``Please release it and arrest me instead.''

``I'll do no such thing'' he said and shrugged me off.

What was I to do? I was told later, that people learn by experience that there is one standard response to this situation: ``How much?'' But I doubt I would have wanted to do that anyway. I wanted to be arrested so I could present my case in court. Much less did I want to present my legal-loophole expos\'e to this policeman. What if he agreed that I was indeed innocent because of this legal loophole and let me go? My only chance to fame and the possibility of admission to prestigious law schools would go with it. So I resolvedly kept my wise arguments to myself and pressed him to either let me go (which I knew he wouldn't) or serve me a court order!

He just nodded condescendingly, as if in obvious acknowledgment of the fact that I was too small to seriously consider a court appearance on my own, and continued to mind his own business. This insulted me even more. I started to become less objective of the situation and began to panic. This was all totally unexpected. I simply wasn't prepared for this eventuality. So I kept pressing him to arrest me as if banging my head repeatedly against a blank wall.

I also had to get the bicycle back in time to the hire shop or they would start charging me for overtime! The policeman was obviously aware of my predicament. I realised later that he was tanking up on me so he could strike at my most vulnerable moment. How naive of me to expect to win against his years of experience! After all, this is exactly what he would have been doing for years on end. Wouldn't he have seen endless numbers of people try all kinds of tricks on him?

But all was not lost. I could still go away and sue him on my own for having confiscated my bicycle. But first I had to make sure that the bicycle hire shop would co-operate with me on this. I certainly wouldn't be able to afford to pay them for all the time that the bicycle was going to be confiscated. So I quickly ran back to the hire shop, explained the situation to them, outlined my cunning plan to expose the system and asked whether they would agree to help me with a court case. The shopkeeper and all his apprentices unanimously disagreed with me wholeheartedly on this.

``If you don't get the bike back in the next five minutes, we are going to have to charge you for overtime'' he said.

One of his more experienced apprentices, who happened to have an erudite air about him then gave me a sober suggestion. He said that I should broach the subject of a possible bribe with the policeman. The shopkeeper and all his other apprentices unanimously nodded in evident approval of this wise suggestion.

But I couldn't bring myself down to the level of bribing a policeman. So I went back and resumed my persistent requests to either arrest me or release me to which the policeman turned a deaf ear. It is amazing how potently erosive simple indifference can be, for soon my proud demands to arrest me wore down to pathetic yelpings to let me have my bicycle back.

After he let me do this for a while, the policeman suddenly seemed to regain interest in my plight.

``What is your father's occupation?'' he asked out of the blue.

This glimmer of hope rekindled my confidence once again. I thought about this quickly. If I told him that my father was only a Sanskrit pundit, he'd probably think that I can't do much damage by way of lawsuits and might even take pity on me and let me go --- the entire effort will be wasted. On the other hand, if I lied that my father was a law officer, possibly even his superior, again, he might be afraid that his own career could be in jeopardy by arresting his superior's son and let me go. So I told him that my father was a successful businessman. This way, it would look as though I was the right candidate to teach a lesson by dragging into court.

But as it turned out, no such advanced cogitation had taken place in his mind. He simply wanted to know what my father did for a living so he could decide just how much I could afford by way of bribe. He said that he didn't have the key to the bicycle and that I was to get it from the corner shopkeeper who usually handles storage of items like these for a charge. I was supposed to recover the key from this shopkeeper after paying him for his services in taking care of the key. Obviously, the two of them have got a co-operative enterprise going on. The policeman would probably give the shop-keeper a cut from the money he made because the shopkeeper shielded him from blame by covering up for him in public and accepting bribe on his behalf.

As I left the policeman to go to this shop, I caught him signalling the shopkeeper a ten with his fingers through the corner of my eye. Sure enough, when I went to the shop, the shopkeeper charged me ten rupees for the key. I tried to bargain with him to bring down the price, but he was adamant. Since I was already weary from all my pleading and didn't want to haggle much longer, I grudgingly fished out my money and gave him ten rupees which formed a major chunk of my life's savings till then. He returned my key with the kind of triumphant smile that imprints itself on people's bad memories.

On my way back to the bicycle, the policeman stopped me, as if to make sure I had learnt my lesson.

``Will you do something illegal like this again?'' He asked with a smirk.

``Of course not... Sir'', I said.

``How much did you pay him?''

Didn't he know how much? Wasn't he the one who signalled the shopkeeper to ask me for ten rupees? In a flash, the realisation struck me that he didn't trust the shopkeeper. My spirits soared high in victory once again.

``The bloody bastard charged me twenty rupees'' I said as I rode away, this time in the right direction.