‘I will throw you out of my car if you insult me, Tata Sumo.’ Well, that was a mean nickname but that was how the insults between Sameer and Kavitha went.

‘You can’t even move my little finger!’ Kavitha snickered and turned to Anu. ‘Thanks, Anu. What would I do without you?’

Within ten minutes of driving, Kavitha had a desire to drink the roadside tea. Anu didn’t mind since she had begun to feel drowsy. Sameer was ever ready for a tea so he turned off the ring road towards a tea-stall. But the moment he got onto the service road, Sameer started cursing when a drunken-driving checkpoint stared at them straight in the face. Soon a traffic policeman approached them with a breathalyzer. Anu peered at it curiously and she grew suspicious.

Sameer got off the car and walked a little distance with the policeman.

‘That looks like the breathalyzer I got on Amazon to gift to Shwetha. Do you think these are fake police? Are they stopping us to fleece money out of us?’

Kavitha grew all excited. ‘You are never wrong when it comes to products sold on Amazon, Anu. Let us call their bluff.’

The next few minutes went by very quickly—with Kavitha accusing the policeman of being fake, a constable getting into their car and driving them to the police station, and Sameer repeatedly telling the policeman that the women with him are a bit demented.

When they got off at the police station, Sameer glared at them. ‘I want the two of you to shut up. Especially you, Sumo. Can’t believe I am stuck with you.’

Anu walked around outside while Sameer pleaded with the policeman. Kavitha said she was too tired to get off the car. Anu smiled at a woman, smartly dressed in jeans and T-shirt, about the same age as her.

‘Drunk driving?’ Anu asked smilingly. A fellow felon.

The woman shook her head. ‘No. I am a journalist. Here to find a story.’

‘Wow. That is cool. I have never been in the news.’ Anu said wistfully.

‘Give me a story. I will put you in the paper.’ The woman smiled.

‘Tonight I am a joke! You can put me in the comic section.’ Anu walked away. What if that woman took a picture of hers and published it in under some heading like, ‘Educated woman caught stealing.’ Journalists did exaggerate.

Sameer had now gone inside the station and Anu saw a man with a parrot, standing before a horse. He was talking to a policeman animatedly. Anu walked towards the scene fascinated.

‘Sir, I don’t know who gave alcohol to the horse. I don’t drink, sir.’ The man slurred even as he spoke.

‘You are drunk and you were riding a drunk horse. I will put you in the jail for one year.’ The policeman was not exactly polite with the threat.