Promethean Refund

Set up:

                As Carrick and I were negotiating the price for the apartment we wanted, one of the issues that came up was the propane tank used to fuel the stove top. It was nearly empty, apparently, and needed to be changed. The landlord agreed that he would get it taken care of along with having the place cleaned before we moved in.

So for the month of November I was taking an intensive Hindi class at a local institute. It takes me about 25 minutes of travel time one way. The class itself was two 90 minute sessions with a 30 minute break in between. On top of that I was still volunteering part-time at the Human Rights Law Network. A typical weekday for me then was: Wake up as late as possible, rush to get ready, walk to the metro, metro ride to Greater Kailash, class, return home, change and go to work, then come home around 6:00 and study until going to bed between 11:00 and 1:00.

                It’s not a very exciting routine, but it is just that – routine. I had two fully-engaging tasks which really dominated my brain space, and everything else sort of turned to background noise.

The con:

                One fine day about three weeks ago I was walking back from class with my mind filled with some Hindi grammatical structure or possibly planning out my lunch. As I was coming up the stairs to our third floor apartment (what would be fourth floor in the States), I heard someone on the steps behind me. Now, there are only three apartments in this building, and I was already at the second floor, so it really only could have been my neighbor or brother. I turned to look and was greeted by a twenties something man coming up the stairs behind me. He told me that he had come by earlier, but that I wasn’t home so he was glad to have caught me this time. He went on to say that he was with the gas company and needed to check the gas cylinder. Remember what I said earlier about the propane tank arrangement we had with the landlord? So did I, so that actually fit with some of my expectations. I let the man in, he checked the cylinder and then told me he would be back in about 15 minutes, he left and came back, to my surprise, pretty much when he said he would. By this time my brother had gotten home, so I let him take care of the rest while I changed and otherwise got ready for work. I heard the exchange through the door of my room, and it was pretty straight forward. The gas guy was going to take the cylinder and come back with a full one in five minutes. In fairness to him, he was completely honest and truthful about the first part. He did take our gas cylinder. It was the second part where he got hung up. It’s now been nearly a month.

The aftermath:

                We talked to our downstairs neighbor, then to our landlord, and they both said the same thing. “Hello.” But then after that they said the same thing again “Okay, talk to you later.” In the middle of those two things they said something very similar to one another, and that was that it was a trick and we’d been robbed. Apparently the gas cylinder had been changed before we’d moved in and now our basically brand new one was gone forever. The next day at work we mentioned this whole situation to our co-workers and one of them said “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that scam. I read about it on Yuni-net.” (Yuni-net is the local ex-pat community website). So it turns out that this is a thing. People come, steal gas, and then resell it for a fairly tiny profit. Oh well, we got duped. It happens.

The bad part:

                Both Carrick and I have a sort of “it’s the principle of the thing” mentality when it comes to a lot of issues in the third world, and Carrick in particular has worked in “rule of law,” so going through the proper channels is rather important to both of us. After this occurred, we went to the local police station to try and file a report. We didn’t expect that anything would come of it, but it’s good to make the report so it’s there. That’s all. I once told the Eugene police about some change that had been stolen out of my parked car. Nothing was broken as the lock on the driver side door was nonfunctional, but it was a crime so I reported it. Maybe it was the start of a trend, who knows?

                We left work a little early to get this thing sorted out with the police and still have some day left on the other side. We went to the police station for our region and found it strangely empty. The receptionist was friendly enough even if she did laugh at me when I explained the theft. I laughed too, it seemed good-natured and not malicious, so no biggy. We were told we would need to wait to file the report, called an FIR here, so Carrick went to grab some food for himself and an ice cream for me. I had a feeling this was going to be a long one.

                Before my brother had returned, an Inspector of the Police, I think his title was, came down to speak with me. I explained my problem to this officer, and he immediately said, “Wait here” and walked off. A short time later a different officer walked over. This would be the man with which I had the majority of the interaction throughout, even though these officers, who are notoriously “overworked”, seemed to have nothing better to do (as there was literally no one other than me and something like a dozen officers in the station) than stand around and watch or ask me to explain, AGAIN, what had happened. This officer was a short, balding man whose uniform begrudged his shape, especially around the middle. I remember that he came to speak to me with a thin sheen of hostility already upon him like one would expect maybe of a detective gearing up to play “bad-cop.” Strange, as I was merely a victim of a crime hoping to file a report. A truly small act which should, seriously, be no more difficult than filling out a piece of paper. I explained the problem to this little man and he went from sitting at a 3 on the hostility scale and jumping, immediately, up to whatever number sits just below physical assault. He immediately started berating me for the incident saying it was not a crime, it was my own fault and how could I be so stupid. I’ll admit that I missed a beat when that was the reaction I got. He began explain all the things I should have done (called my landlord when the gas guy showed up, check for his official gas guy identification which apparently they are supposed to carry). I interrupted him by stating that I’m new to India, and don’t know all the ins and outs. Especially when it comes to gas cylinders, since we don’t have set-up at all like that in the states. Sure there are barbeques, but those tanks you deal with on your own by going to a store or calling your local Hank Hill or something. I don’t know, I don’t have a gas grill! The angry little man increased the severity of blaming me and continued to say that it was not a crime because I’d just let him have it. I explained, not rudely but trying not to appear like I would back down, that what he was now doing was called “victim blaming.” In my case it was a cheap cop-out (get it?) but this is the kind of tactic that is a huge reason such a high percentage of rapes go unreported. Sadly, this is a fairly common occurrence around the world, but India, especially considering that it is the world’s largest democracy, is really behind in women’s rights (Click here to see Progress!). Me as a victim was being told I was dumb for letting someone take my cylinder. Yeah, it was kinda dumb, but it was a con, I fell for it, whatever. If you tell a rape victim that it’s their own fault? That the worst thing that’s ever happened to them was their own doing? Can you even imagine? I certainly hope that you can’t, but still you can see why this is completely inappropriate behavior for an officer whose job is to protect people from crimes, not facilitate them. After a bit more back and forth, the buck was finally passed from me to the landlord because I was not technically the owner of the gas cylinder. I call my landlord and he spoke to the police officer, who then told me that everything was fine because the owner was coming down and I could go home. This seemed much too simple and I was dubious of his dismissal. My brother got back with food and ice cream about this time and I caught him up on what was happening, but stayed right in the station as I did not believe Officer Dismissive McVictimblame. Shortly after I got a call from the landlord asking if he could speak to the officer again. I asked him if he was coming down and he told me of course he wasn’t, why would he? Nailed it. The officer hadn’t even asked him to come down. Haha, jokes on him. He’d blamed me, told me it wasn’t a crime, and then blatantly lied to me to get me to leave so he could continue not doing his job. Little did he know that my Yale Law Graduate brother was now back. Gloves = off.

                We were summoned to talk to the officer yet again, but this time Carrick took the lead. The man begin to explain that it was not a crime and Carrick shot him down. The man began to blame me and Carrick let loose. He wasn’t yelling, or even raising his voice, but you could hear the vehemence in his voice. “You are a worthless piece of garbage. You are what’s wrong with India. Even in America there is a reputation of how awful and corrupt the Indian Police Force is and it’s because of people like you.” Oh, it was glorious. One officer standing nearby had to translate the part about garbage, which was pretty awkward for the messenger. To add the little surreal spin that India likes to put on things, this whole exchange was happening in the room near the back of the station where the officer who was attempting to further bully us was getting undressed. Straight up just taking his clothes off. There was no explanation save the little shower basket on a chair next to him. After realizing he was beaten, he just sort of checked out. He stopped talking and just slunk off towards what I presume are the showers. We went back up to the receptionist area and continued to press. Eventually we talked them down to letting us see a higher up in five minutes rather than two hours (Ugh, you have to haggle for EVERYTHING here).

The resolution:

                This was the turning point. We were seen rather promptly around the promised five minutes. We spoke to the Superintendent who was polite, professional, offered us tea, and above all apologized for our treatment. At one point officer-strip-tease came in and tried to explain to the Super that it wasn’t a crime. Eventually there were four or five officers in the room backing up their comrade, trying to explain to their boss that it wasn’t a crime to con someone, but the Super quietly but with absolute authority put them down. He took our statement and sent us on our way. Later he dispatched three or four of the officers to come over and speak with the landlord, who was the owner of the tank, and we were brought in to have a say in the conversation. One officer referred casually to Carrick as Mr. Angry Man and then tried to explain how the law in India and America is different. Carrick casually explained that it was not because common law and shut up.

                “I just want to file the FIR because it’s the right thing to do and I believe in going through the correct channels.”

“But if you file the report, and we catch him, you will be required to come back to India for the court case.”

“That won’t happen because you won’t catch him.”

“What makes you say that we won’t find this man?”

“Because here all of you are, after all of these hours, putting in all of this work in order to NOT do your job. I have absolute and complete confidence in your not doing your job.”

                In the end the owner of the propane tank didn’t want to go forward with the FIR, but settled for a more easily dismissed ‘complaint’ and we called it a day. We wanted it done properly, but our landlord is actually a really sweet man, and we didn’t want to put him in a more awkward spot than we already were. A week and a half later we got a new tank and all is well. And on the plus side I can now say, without a hint of irony:

Fuck the Police.