When I was young, I grew up in a small city which is no longer a small city: Those days most of us cycled, and the muscles of our legs provided us fuel to go all over. But towards night it became imperative for us to see that the headlamps on our cycle were lit. Headlamps are a glorious term for what gave the light, it was actually a kerosene oil lamp, with a wick, behind it, a reflector. The reflector threw the weak light forward, and if I remember just enough to see your hands on the handlebar of your cycle.

You adjusted the flame with a small round knob and then drove into the wind, which every now and then blew out the flame. So, most of the time we spent checking to see whether our lamp was on or not, for which there were two little windows on either side of the ancient lamp which told you how the fire was going.

Very often with the smoke the kerosene gave, the two windows turned black and you had to check the lamp by stopping and staring hard into the front of the lamp.

Now why would you go to such trouble over a lamp that hardly threw any light?

Ah well, at most junctions, behind a tree, a wall, or some such hiding place lurked a traffic policeman, waiting to catch you for riding with no light. “Halt!” he would shout, and you knew that a trip to the police station was on the cards.

“But sir,” we would say, “See the lamp is still hot, the flame just went out! Give me a match, I’ll light it and let me go!”

“No light!” said the policeman sternly with an air of finality, and you joined a half a dozen other cyclists who he’d caught and would now take to the station. Many however got away by paying a fiver or offering him a cigarette; bribery was cheaper those days!

It’s many years since I’ve used a cycle, many years since I’ve seen a kerosene lamp, but I’ve found same traffic policeman existing in all walks of life, waiting behind a lamppost, tree or corner, waiting to pounce.

But this piece is not about policemen, its about you and me! Are we the type who wait for others to make mistakes? And then when the mistake has been committed, we jump out and yell and shout, or, are we ones who help light the lamp again, when someone has gone astray?

To such as you, who have this traffic policeman habit do I address this column: Stop being critical all the time, stop looking for faults. Everyone’s lamp goes out, once in a while, just step across, and light their lamp…!

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