This snapshot captures the essentials of life and living in West Bengal today. A prosperity of sorts has come in recent years, which has put not just many more cars on narrow roads, but also a swarm of motorbikes. Many other lifestyle products have also arrived; but when the motorbike ride comes, everyone else steps back to make way.
Many who would ride a bicycle earlier have now managed to acquire a motorbike, but the young men who flash recent models that cost nearly a lakh or more on the road are a breed apart. They are well dressed, have a swagger and are intrinsically intimidating. They vroom down roads, irrespective of how narrow or crowded they may be.
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It is difficult to figure out where the money for the bikes comes from. The only young men who could buy such motorbikes out of their own salaries would be those working in the information technology sector, but many of them go straight for cars. Young men whose fathers buy them flashy motorbikes form a subset of the overall biking group. But most are rentiers who are at the edge of the construction industry or have somehow come into a lot of cash in some way that you and I could not have.
Most importantly, they are connected with lower-level politicians and seem to know the local police well. They walk in and out of police stations with ease and sit around and sip tea with policemen on the beat. Most citizens will think twice before confronting these young men and will do so by, say, going to the local thana, only in a group. And when the aggrieved talk to the media, they often prefer anonymity.
In the last year or so, leading Kolkata newspapers have run several features on the growing motorbike menace. Here's a summary. Bikers often congregate by the roadside in residential neighbourhoods, their bikes parked any which way. A hitherto quiet corner of a neighbourhood is then turned into a raucous night meeting spot from where bikers routinely pass comments at girls walking by.
They drink, smoke joints and race up and down. Sometimes, when a girlfriend is present, a biker becomes truly reckless. Residents near one such hangout next to a college say that things have become worse ever since the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad gained control of the students' union.
A particularly unnerving practice of the bikers is speed biking. Bikers usually assemble near prominently located petrol pumps and dhabas, choose stretches of wide roads that get lonely later in the evening, and race. A common pastime for such groups is passing comments on girls walking by, or bragging - sometimes about stalking a girl. In one instance, a girl gets off a car, jumps onto a bike and the driver vrooms off in great speed. Families now avoid some of these bikers' meeting points.
Speed biking often goes with rich kids who flaunt their political connections. The reaction of the police is twofold. In public responses, senior police officers claim things have not got particularly worse lately. If you have a problem, approach the roadside police assistance booth, they say. But sometimes, later in the evening, these are empty. In private conversation, thana-level policemen say: you will not imagine the number of phone calls we get from important people if we try to act against these young men.
Speeding bikers often hurtle down the wrong side of a road; and, as cars coming from the opposite direction try to scurry to safety, the bikers, in pairs, swerve at the last moment. This gives them a great kick. In one case, there was a brush between a car and a bike. The policemen nearby asked the biker to apologise and let him off!
The police say that, as soon as these bikers see them, they turn around and vamoose. The only way to catch them is mobile cluster policing. How often can you do that? The easiest way to catch these bikers is to book all those riding without helmets. That gear is an absolute no-no. You can hardly spoil your hair by putting on a helmet after using a lot of gel - and time - to get it into proper shape. You know how expensive gel is.
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