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The other day i was reading an article about corruption and was astonished to read that more than 90% of Indians do not mind paying a bribe to get their work completed and the rest 10% agreed that though they are reluctant to pay the bribe, they end up paying it because of the consequences they might have to face for not paying it and though i despise all this bribery, etc, i have been a recent victim of this and thought of sharing it on my blog.
I was on my way from office to home and got an urgent call on my cell phone, which I could not afford to miss and being stuck in heavy traffic, i had no other option but to take the call.
I started talking on the phone and suddenly hear a knock on the window of my car and here he was “The messiah of corruption” a Traffic policeman. First though to cross my mind was “God what wrong did i do today, to meet this un heavenly soul 
”
I parked my vehicle by the side of road and asked him about the fine for this offence. the response was Rs. 1000, which I think was a huge amount for this mistake. Anyways knowing it was my mistake and I would not be able to get away without a fine, i opened my wallet to pay him and this is where the fun starts, the not so friendly cop transforms in to an overly friendly cop for no reason.
He started asking me about my profession, etc, etc and before I knew, the whole discussion was going in some other direction. I was being convinced in to believing how much extra i am paying for such a small offence and then came the final blow…He agreed to leave me if i pay half the penalty amount to him. Precisely speaking, he wanted bribe and since I did not talk about it and probably he was too used to getting it from people, he came forward and asked it himself.
Now I was in a state of dilemma. On one hand was my hard earned money and on the other hand were my ethics and moral values that I keep speaking about in my blog . Not that I had never paid a bribe before but this was my first encounter with a traffic police in Delhi. Their poor cousins in U.P are always willing to take a bribe and we don’t feel offended or surprised to see them stopping so LOW but this was Delhi, the capital city of India.
I finally took the wrong path and like every honest Indian, saved my 500 and before I could get in to my car, he was gone riding on his bike.
Well moral of the story is quite simple…Annas and Gandhi’s will come and go. The fight against corruption will go on and will not end until and unless we decide to take a stand against it. How many times have we asked our parents to not manipulate the taxes we pay or how many times have we decided against taking a bribe.
The problem does not lie with the government or the administrators running it. They ar ejust a machinery, the whole fuel is provided by us.
fight against corruption
