The Imprisonment of Alexi

Alexi is another foreign exchange student at my college. He’s from France. We were having dinner a while back when suddenly he said, “I went to jail last night.” We stared at each other then burst out laughing. “What?” I asked.

Apparently he and some friends were having a little get together the evening before, and their music was playing a little too loud for a neighbor’s comfort. Some time after midnight, one of his friends came running into the room yelling, “The cops are here! Turn off the music!” They did. They turned off the music, and they turned off the lights too, and when the cops knocked on the door, they pretended to be asleep. The officers refused to go away, so finally someone got up and to see what they wanted. In the groggiest tone he could muster, the kid says, “Can I help you, officer?” The cops insisted on coming inside, and after seeing that all 11 people had climbed into the same bed, they figured that no one was actually sleeping.

The kids apologized for playing their music too loudly, but Indian cops insist on being difficult. They quickly ushered everyone outside and put them in their SUV—all 11 of them. Then they took them to jail. The funny thing is that a couple of the kids actually were sleeping and hadn’t had anything to with the noise. Dazed and confused, they were brought outside with everyone else and worst of all, they didn’t have shoes.

By 1:30 am, they had arrived at the station. Alexi, of course, had no idea what was going on, and didn’t understand what was being argued about in Hindi. There was a lot of sitting around, a lot of “trying to get some sleep”, and very little speaking. Moral was low. At 4:30 in the morning, someone finally offered the cops a large enough bribe, and they let them go. It wasn’t large enough for a ride home, apparently, because they had to call a friend to come pick them up.

I guess the party was over.