Cheats at the photocopier

Today was the second time I saw some cheats at the photocopier's. I was at a typical big photocopier's shop that offers all kinds of printing services, photocopying and also lamination. I was there to laminate all my important documents (one less thing to worry about when the water level in the house rises for whatever reasons). As the lamination was in progress, 2 guys (quite rough from their looks) disembarked from a motorcycle and demanded from one of the boys at the counter to colour photocopy what looked like a laminated government-issued document. Their idea, which they foolishly expressed, was to change the number (id) at the top of the document in the photocopy. The boy at the counter cooly replied that it was not possible for them to do that...if they wanted a photocopy, it would come laminated and no change of id would be permitted. I tried to see what document it was that they wanted to forge. It turned out to be a "Zopadpatti Rahivashi Olakhpatra" (translation: a "Slum Resident Identity Card"). Later, those guys went away a bit disappointed. The boy at the counter said they could not take the risk of forging such documents as it may land them in a jail.

That reminded me of another incident in the month of March 2006. This time I was at a smaller photocopier's shop. It was about 09:00 in the morning and I wanted to get photocopies of some documents. A girl came in and she had a chemistry text book in hand. She wanted to make small (reduction to about 25%) of some important pages. The boy at the counter readily obliged. When the photocopies were given to her, she folded them into small chits. It was then that I realised what purpose she was doing that for. It was the month of March and the 12th standard board examinations were in progress. She wanted to use those chits to hide somewhere so that she could copy from them!