The Great Highway
Robbery
And for another week-end, a few
stray thoughts and a few general observations and a few points of view (some of
it my own work and some as reported by media):
The term ‘highwayman’ conjures up
an image of a masked bandit riding his horses waylaying lone travelers and
stage coaches. Almost all regions of the
world have had their versions of these bandits, including the folklore heroes
like Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest and closer
to home Phoolan Devi and Veerappan. Euphemistically called ‘the gentlemen of
the road’ or ‘knights of the road’ and revered by general populace as heroes who
robbed the rich and distributed their earnings to the poor, their stories have
regaled or sometimes traumatized generations of small children. ( Remember Gabbar?)
But for all their daredevilry and
swagger they were just ‘blue-collared workers’ of the world of crime destined
to eke out their daily bread by shedding blood and sweat. Their acts must pale in insignificance when
compared to the ‘white-collared lords’ of crime who have taken the art of
highway robbery to far greater heights and made a living for generations by
just a few strokes of pen proving yet again that the pen is mightier than the
sword.
Long ago I had heard a story
about Calcutta to Diamond Harbour highway (and my friends from Kolkata can
correct me if my memory is not right). It seems during the good old days of
Company sircar, a highway was built to
connect Calcutta to Diamond Harbour and
the length of the highway was entered in the record books as some 100 odd
miles. In the following decades a goodly sum must have been spent on construction
and upkeep of the road; all properly budgeted and approved on the basis of the
length of the road documented in the Record Office. Sometime after a few
decades, a survey was taken up (by an independent agency) which, however, threw
up an astonishing fact. The distance between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour had
somehow shrunk by some 30 – 40 miles !!!
The original crime I suppose must have
been committed by a Clive or a Bentick, out to make the most out of his
posting. But somehow the heist ran on for a long time. I am not aware what
exactly transpired after the feline was let out of the bag but a few babus in
Writers’ Building must have found that their source of income had suddenly dried
up or at least diminished considerably.
One would feel that in this day
of satellite coverage etc such daylight highway robbery would be a thing of
past. But think again. Here is another story, this time out of Russia. A State official, by the name of Alexander
Protopopov, was held for ‘stealing’ a public road of about 50 kms. He managed to cut up a concrete road and sell
the slabs. The news report does not say where the stolen goods were to be used.
But I suspect it must have been for building some other road somewhere
else. Apparently Protopopov was in
charge of a prison and employed the interns for some additional roubles.
My friend Guy Wise says that he
doesn’t know about the path to Hell but the path to the prison gate must be
paved with concrete slabs.
Cheers
LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis
16th Jan 2016
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