Saturday, May 11, 2013

Grandma's Stories - Police who actually did their jobs

That time my grandma was around 11 years old. She was cycling to town after school to buy some groceries for her mother. She reached the sundry shop which she usually went and bought some stuff from the uncle shopkeeper.

She was happily leaving the shop (as she had completed her chore) and was on the home, when suddenly, she was approached by a gang of plain-clothed policemen.

"What have you bought from that shop, girl?"

My grandma was surprised and intimidated by the policemen, but she replied bravely, "Oh nothing much actually, just some sugar..."

The policemen got excited and said, "You'll have to follow me, girl."

My grandma was frightened and wondered, "What do they want me to follow them for?" But being a good girl as she was, she followed the policemen into the sundry shop where she had left moments ago.

Once inside, the policemen demanded the shopkeeper to reweigh the sugar that he had sold to my grandma.

Lo and behold! It was less than what she should have gotten. The crooked shopkeeper was caught red-handed! His face flushed red as the policemen wrote down his particulars for a saman (*summons).

The policemen then brought my grandma to her nearest living guardian, which is her second brother (since her father and eldest brother had died during the Japanese invasion some time ago) and asked him whether he wanted to press charges. Both he and my grandma declined since it was just some sugar and that the shopkeeper had reimbursed my grandma with the properly weighed sugar.

Nevertheless, this was an unforgettable experience to my grandma and hence, she told me this story whenever we passed by the place where the sundry shop used to reside.

1 comment: