Good Cop, Bad Cop

It was the eve of American independence day in 2008. Barely a year in this country as international students, we received some somber news that shocked us to the core. A few of our university seniors and batch mates had been in a terrible car accident. Two of them had died instantly while the driver lay comatose in the hospital. Over the course of the year, we processed the uncomfortable details of the court proceedings and the final verdict. The driver, who had survived, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter of his best friends.

Over the years, I occasionally went back to that period via online searches, trying to make sense of the events and hoping for some closure. An early pardon for good behavior, a deportation to his home country, anything. The deeper I went down the rabbit hole, the more disillusioned I became with the law enforcement in this country.

On the night of the accident, as two of them lay grievously injured in the front seats, the first white patrol officer to arrive on scene made heroic attempts to pull them out of the car wreck. Unable to do so alone, he radioed for help. The second white officer, of a higher rank, allegedly refused to help him save them on the grounds of the two being "dirty (expletive) Indians".  The next day, when the good cop called out the sergeant on his behavior in front of all colleagues, he was placed on leave for insubordination. Not to be outdone, he filed a whistleblower suit against the department that chronicled him being harassed, ridiculed and pressured to retire. He won a settlement of $250k in this particular case that ran for 3 years with support from fellow officers who served as witnesses. Consecutively, the entire police department became engulfed in a whirlwind of political machinations. The two factions, the good cops vs the bad cops, ultimately became a part of another lawsuit that the latter won. The bad cop had dozens of internal affairs complaints against him about racial profiling and uncouth language, and half the department tried to brush them under the carpet. Ultimately, he was let go off by the PD and currently works for TSA at Newark airport.

This story remains my personal example and a stark reminder of what I could expect from the law enforcement agencies in this country if my fellow Indians or I ever find ourselves in a dire situation. Luckily for us, the closest encounters we've had with the police has been unfair treatment over traffic violations, which isn't surprising in retrospect. We are all too familiar with another chilling video of an Indian grandfather being slammed to the ground by a white officer in a neighborhood in Alabama. While the victim struggles to walk due to partial paralysis, the perpetrator walks scott-free today.

As this nation rightfully roils over the gruesome murder of George Floyd and the 'Black Lives Matter' movement gathers steam once again, a tiny portion of us brown spectators who have no say in partisan politics, are secretly rooting for justice for George along with many like him; and an end to systemic racism in the institutions that are here to protect us.



When US beckoned me by Siddharth Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

To consume is human, to create divine?

You are born. If your parents and the hospital staff are lucky, you will produce an endearing scream to make their hearts swell. For most part, you will consume - copious amounts of attention, food, colors, smells, sounds, sights. Your senses are working overtime, so are your bowels.

You are eight. You have consumed small books by now, some music that your parents love, some movies your friends told you about. You probably learnt an instrument or became multi-lingual. But you've also produced - paintings in art competitions, regurgitated dances performances from songs you saw on TV, maybe an essay about your favorite animal or a well-navigated goal in your school soccer team.

You are a feisty teenager. As much as you are voraciously consuming media that will align you with your peers' tastes, you are showcasing your angst at the world through a high school band. You are devouring tweets and instafluencing other teens with your peculiar style and thoughts. You may have started caring about the state of the world we're in and try to band together other denizens to alleviate some perceived social evil. And you've been introduced to the adult version of the birds and the bees, so you've begun exploring.

You are in final years of college, planning for a grad school to get that edge over others or eyeing that particularly lucrative job market. You've read the textbooks, may have listened to your professors in classes and argued vehemently over some nuances. You written tedious assignments and exam solutions for good grades, along with buttressing your resumes with extracurricular activities. Maybe a stint at web development for a small-time company, a few hours each week at an elderly care facility, some shifts as a swim-instructor.

You have a stable 9-to-5 job. All you produce is what your work entails and sign off your rights to it. You have unending queues on all streaming platforms, have books you read at a snail's pace, inhale news from 24/7 news and social platforms, join forces with your friends to watch a popular sports event. Maybe you hum a tune once a while, cook for reasons apart from sustenance and strum the dusty guitar. You may be posting your rambling thoughts on subjects you understand partly or sharing pictures of your weekend excursions, if you managed to get up and get out.

You are middle-aged, living an ideal life with your lovely family. You are disciplining your kids, scrambling to keep a roof over their heads and paying off your multiple loans with an even more stable job. You do the dishes, check on the bills, keep an eye on those investments, think of ways to get more tax benefits. You try to watch the movies your friends tell you about, play some of your band's songs, wax nostalgic over the pictures you posted ten years back. You plan a cruise once a year.

You have retired. You have paid off those loans and the bills are taking care of themselves through your myriad of investments. You played with your grandchildren when you could but mostly spent hours trying to understand how the newer technology could connect you with your old self. You occasionally call a friend and dig in each others' memories for the same treasures. You use your well-earned money to plan tour-bus trips to distant places if your health allows it and avoid eating those funny-looking foreign dishes or participating in activities that seem too adventurous.

Finally, you've been fortunate enough to be on your comfy death bed at a ripe old age. You engage in some mental calisthenics over what were your contributions over your span of life. What percentage of your life did you spend in consuming stuff that others produced - be it social media posts, music, art, literature, sports feats, culinary delicacies? How much of the tally is in favor of you having produced masterpieces to the best of your abilities at different stages in your life? Would there be any kind of judgement from an otherworldly entity if those numbers do not look right? Does it matter if you left no tangible mark on the planet? And if it did matter, would you turn off that all-encompassing smartphone, email-ridden tablet and wall-size flatscreen and begin creating original content today?




When US beckoned me by Siddharth Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.