Prologue.
Many of us have misguided opinions about ourselves and today, was just a day when I'd come across such a bunch of guys who'd held quite a few of us to ransom - for over two hours - thanks to their boorish behaviour!
The day's proceedings.
Gavi, is indeed, the perfect weekend getaway for people staying in the concrete jungles of the cities! The forest has been carefully insulated from man made inflictions like littering with plastic and muck, plucking flowers or removing shrubs for transplanting them at their homes etc. The flora and the fauna are of a wide variety and are a pleasant sight. I must admit that the colourful scenery, all round, was a fantastic experience. Walking through narrow paths up and down the hills, through thick foliage, with amazing sights everywhere was a rare experience. The trek, the boating and a visit to the makeshift museum - a permanent one is in the process of being built - were the activities that were packed into the itinerary.
So, it was with a satisfied feeling that we're returning after tea time, when we got to be at the receiving end of the famous 'mallu arrogance'. There was a group of people, travelling in a set of six vehicles who'd an altercation, at the exit, with the forest officials - over trivia, actually. Gavi has two points of ingress for people approaching it from the south and the rule is that every visitor must enter and exit through the same gate. The recalcitrant group wanted to flout this rule to save some distance on their onward journey! I'd personally intervened and tried to make the people see reason and avoid the logjam.
But alas, no one was willing to budge but what tickled me no end was when the erring group dropped names and insisted that they're pretty close to a particular minister, whom they wanted to contact desperately to resolve the issue - the difficulty was that all the cellphones were rendered useless due to the absence of transmission coverage! The minister happens to be related to me but I kept this information to myself and directed the forest official to fetch the police from the nearest point to untangle the impasse.
That's what was eventually done after a lapse of over two hours!
Tailpiece.
Later that evening, I saw the same group at dinner at the place where we're staying. They'd managed to get their way through and gave us those victorious(?) looks which we chose to ignore. Deep within, I'd the feeling of having been let down by the law enforcers. Sadly, laws don't get applied uniformly in the manner that they should be -without fear or favour!
Many of us have misguided opinions about ourselves and today, was just a day when I'd come across such a bunch of guys who'd held quite a few of us to ransom - for over two hours - thanks to their boorish behaviour!
The day's proceedings.
Gavi, is indeed, the perfect weekend getaway for people staying in the concrete jungles of the cities! The forest has been carefully insulated from man made inflictions like littering with plastic and muck, plucking flowers or removing shrubs for transplanting them at their homes etc. The flora and the fauna are of a wide variety and are a pleasant sight. I must admit that the colourful scenery, all round, was a fantastic experience. Walking through narrow paths up and down the hills, through thick foliage, with amazing sights everywhere was a rare experience. The trek, the boating and a visit to the makeshift museum - a permanent one is in the process of being built - were the activities that were packed into the itinerary.
So, it was with a satisfied feeling that we're returning after tea time, when we got to be at the receiving end of the famous 'mallu arrogance'. There was a group of people, travelling in a set of six vehicles who'd an altercation, at the exit, with the forest officials - over trivia, actually. Gavi has two points of ingress for people approaching it from the south and the rule is that every visitor must enter and exit through the same gate. The recalcitrant group wanted to flout this rule to save some distance on their onward journey! I'd personally intervened and tried to make the people see reason and avoid the logjam.
But alas, no one was willing to budge but what tickled me no end was when the erring group dropped names and insisted that they're pretty close to a particular minister, whom they wanted to contact desperately to resolve the issue - the difficulty was that all the cellphones were rendered useless due to the absence of transmission coverage! The minister happens to be related to me but I kept this information to myself and directed the forest official to fetch the police from the nearest point to untangle the impasse.
That's what was eventually done after a lapse of over two hours!
Tailpiece.
Later that evening, I saw the same group at dinner at the place where we're staying. They'd managed to get their way through and gave us those victorious(?) looks which we chose to ignore. Deep within, I'd the feeling of having been let down by the law enforcers. Sadly, laws don't get applied uniformly in the manner that they should be -without fear or favour!
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