you have been framed

Earlier this week finding that I had a couple of hours to spare I asked an autorikshaw to drive me to the US embassy in order to do a recky of the site. I was curious because friends had told me that there was a 500 m exclusion zone and I was keen to see what it looked like. To be honest there were a couple of concrete blocks in the street outside ....nothing too dramatic. Whilst driving past I hastily got out my camera and took a snap or two. Big mistake, in a flash one of the guards was running towards me gesticulating madly with his arms and ordering my driver to stop. O Blimey I hadn't realised that taking a pic. in a restricted area was such a crime. The guards radioed for their supervisor that found it most suspicious that I was not carrying around any form of ID. I had to wait around for ages whilst they took snaps of myself and my driver and phoned the Delhi police to do a search on me. My driver was very scared and was certainly not helping by telling the guards that he had been driving me round all morning and that I had not taken a single snap until we got to the embassy......thanks mate! anyways after the police HQ gave the ok and after having made me delete the offending frames they let me go on my merry way .....I was a little shaken and dying to get home to have a fag but had earlier on in the day promised the driver that I would visit two shops(they get a cut).
These shops are death I mean tourist traps they are large and overpriced and employ hordes of employees that follow your every move and put mountains of pressure on you to bye. I bought some piece of rubbish cos I felt sorry for the driver who was very shaken. He kept repeating "madam I good man no trouble, no trouble want" poor bloke they had taken his number plate and mug shot, I tried to assure him that this was only a formality....anyways back at my hotel I gave him a hefty tip and legged it ....
By the evening I had just about relaxed about the whole episode when I bumped into my friend Mao. I conveyed the days events to him ......"by tomorrow the police will have conducted all the checks on you and once they find out that you are a campaigner they will start watching you and they can hassle you ...". I felt worried for about an hour and then calmed down, I mean it's not as if organising a demo which ends outside the US embassy and where we get to have a pop at Exon is a crime after all India is supposed to be the biggest democracy in the world......is it not?!

Well since my snaps of the US embassy were forcibly removed here is a shot of the Canadian embassy... just so you don't feel you're missing out.... Imagine a couple of barricades in front that should do the trick!

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