Appu is at Page 22 and the authors of the report are still expressing “heartfelt” gratitude to everybody who helped made it possible, from Rajapakse’s Kossa (IGP Chandra Fernando) to the printer who produced the document without checking for spelling.

sadly, Appu can’t play book cricket with PDF pages :-(

You see… Appu was doing one last round to pick up Arrack and a few other essentials @ Amarasiri’s before his trip to San Francisco that same night and this was not a convenient way to spend the time. Given that the Singapore Girl wasn’t about to let Appu change his cheap ticket, Appu was certainly not going to consider standing in line at the post office to pay the fine the next day and make a couple of trips to the po-lice stayshun to get his plastic back.

The poleesman asks Appu in the vernacular if he knew why he was isstopped and Appu in a rare split second fit of brilliance pulls out his California Driver’s Licence, instead of the Lankan one.
Aha!
Copper not thrilled but can’t be pissed as Sri Lankans don’t get pissed at people from foreign countries, unless they’re trecherous Norwegian Aryans (but thats a different matter).
A few back and forth attempts and the copper realises that there isn’t a common language that can help communicate what was otherwise a simple solution to this rather inconveient stop. So he calls his partner who immediately spots a couple of bottles of distilled c’nut sap in the back seat. Two bottles of Mendis 7 year old (c’nut cognac IMHO) and one bottle of black opal arrack that was to be a gift for Sujith the tuk-tuk driver at the junction near my place. The poleesman doesn’t touch the 7 year old stuff as he isn’t familiar with it but the Black Opal made his eyes light up. He opens the back door, reaches in and takes it out… looks at it and asks me, “thaeagi” ?? of course, the penny dropped for Appu and he wasn’t about to deny the poleesman his desire for Appu could almost hear the cackle of the sea lions in San Francisco.

Later that night, as the seat-belt light went off and Appu settled into his rice and mutton rogan josh and a nice glass of merlot, Appu couldn’t but feel a tinge of guilt for helping make Paradise a worse place to live. Appu was asking for more…

http://parippuplease.blogspot.com/

The rest well.. it should’ve not happened in the first place!

Adrenaline surged as I popped it into reverse, and got back on to RAdeMel. Pedal to the metal, and I was off. Hopped on a side road a quarter mile later, put myself in CMB 7, and on my way.

I laughed.

And I remember the anger in the cop’s face as he looked over his shoulder as I sped off. Tough break boy. Theres no frickin honour among thieves… at least not at his level.

Maybe its the cost of living thats pushing them a bit now?

But there was this one incident where I got copped for not doing anything wrong and since i was driving alone that day, I couldn’t really argue as my mum insists I remain calm and never argue with cops and army guys….

So he wrote me a ticket and took my license… and I had to pay something like 500 bucks I think… and it was real hassle as you have to make 2 trips to the police station and then one to the post office! such a pain!

and what was worst is, he said I did one mistake, but the paper said something else! He just did it for the sake of it to get his share! and I NEVER bribe them… atleast I haven’t been in a situation where I’ve had to do it….

these things frustrate me…. and well, what can we do.. cops will be cops.. not all are same… and most of them just get corrupted by the day! sigh

Bribery, on the other hand, is a different matter. Everytime you do it, you’re feeding the monster. I can understand people doing it to avoid losing a licence or getting out of big fines and/or jailtime (I’ve done it myself), but for an expired revenue licence? Dude, that’s sad.

Having said that, cops can be arseholes (anywhere in the world), and you’re usually unlikely to be given justice, so sometimes a bribe or ‘pull’ makes sense, though I hate bribing a cop who’s screwing me over. Was driving to Habarana last year, and around Dambulle, there was this cop on one of those little CD100s or whatever doing about 20kmph along the highway, blocking traffic. So I overtake him, but it’s a close fit, cos there’s oncoming traffic. Bugger chases me down and tries to book me for dangerous driving, claiming I tried to run him over. We try to talk him out of it but he’s pissed off, and doesn’t have a ticket book to book me. So he tells us to follow him to the Dambulle police station. Two minutes later, he runs out of petrol (that’s why he was doing 20kmph, I guess). So now he’s pushing the bike, at like 3kmph, me following in my car, and traffic stacked up back to Kurunegala. Meantime, pedestrians, shopkeepers, etc are having a good laugh, which pisses him off further.

Finally more cops arrive, and after more arguing, write me up. It’s a court appearance, which means I’ve gotta drive back to Dambulle the next week. No attempts to bribe or convince have any effect — police egos apparently are not that easily salved. Head on to Habarana and tell anyone who’ll listen. Luckily a client knows the Dambulle OIC (ah, Sri Lanka), so I go see the guy, who’s an ex-Police Rugby ex-STF ASP who apologizes and changes the ticket to a parking offense which is Rs200 (plus 20 for the stamps), and I’m off. On the way back to Habarana I spot the same traffic cop nailing cars for crossing the centre line. He’s stopped a car on the road, so we cross the line to pass, I wave my licence at him, and drive off into the sunset.