My Publicized Life

Necessary disclaimer: I have absolutely no first-hand experience in crime. Excluding, that is, my solitary attempt at stealing a fork from a restaurant. Things were going well until I surreptitiously slipped the fork into my front jeans pocket and then sat down...but that's a different story. All of what follows is an innocent man's take on what he perceives is the murky world of crime, based purely on the written word. Ever hear the phrase "Crime doesn't pay"? Well, it does, apparently, and it does so well that it's serious business. Heck, I think it could fall right into mainstream commerce, except for the fact that you're doing something that's banned by the law. But its more than just commerce...it’s a lifestyle. It's deeply entrenched in your thoughts, your beliefs, your entire value system. And yes, criminals do have a value system...and a complex one at that. Both these aspects - the commerce and the lifestyle - are highlighted individually

For those few hours, I found myself trapped, both mentally and physically. The chair I was seated on, although comfortable enough, was not conducive to easy escape. The demi-darkness served to further alienate me…making the combined assault on my senses all the more unbearable. I was in a living hell. The only small comfort…I wasn’t alone in this nightmare. All around me, I perceived a struggling, squirming mass of humanity, all part of this confusion, all similarly trapped. Ahead of us, covering a significant portion of a vast 70mm screen, lay the culprit - an image of a face, magnified so as to be larger than life, frighteningly close-up, each bristle of facial hair standing out in utmost clarity. And then came the real terror…the sound. From the Dolby Surround Sound speakers came forth a somewhat baritone, mostly nasal and completely tuneless voice, shouting out the lyrics of a song with unbridled gusto…and the image in the screen zoomed back to show a shortish heavyset man, guitar

You're riding along on a narrow road, when you see a distant line of trucks approaching you. You calculate the gap between the trucks and the kerb, slow down slightly and wait for the trucks to pass you. And as each one passes, you feel the familiar "whooosh" of wind hitting you, blowing your jacket back and threating to lift your helmet off your head. As you wait for the next truck to pass, you smile...you realize you love the highway! You're riding on a curve down an open road, when you feel a blast of wind hit you from the side. "Crosswind" you think, and for the next several moments shift your body around in an effort to keep the bike perpendicular to the ground. You know in your heart that a heavy bike like the Enfield will not lose its balance or be blown off the road, but that doesn't stop a stab of fear from passing through your heart. As it passes, you smile...you realize you love the highway! You've spent all day riding down dusty, potholed

Grim-faced, sweaty, tired, downtrodden in the worst possible way, they squatted in a row at the entrance, mumbling to themselves and shuffling around in a vain attempt at comfort. Through sunken eyes, they looked at the world around them, a world that no longer held any surprises, any traces of joy or beauty. I wondered why anyone would willingly choose to bear the burden they did, hour after hour, day after day. For they, in the most literal sense, bore the burden of humanity. A humanity that first failed them, and then mocked at their misery in the crudest fashion, by forcing them to bend under the weight of their fellow humans for a living. Making them scurry around like rats, at the beck and call of their more privileged kin who they ferried on their shoulders on makeshift palanquins. More often than not, the occupiers of these cushioned seats on bamboo sticks were the stereotypical 'behenjis' and 'auntyjis', mildly obese, clad in flashy sarees & munching on sna