Blessed with the ‘Maria’ in my surname, many thought I was a Christian from some coastal town down South. Those who had learned that I was a Punjabi, took me to be straight from up North somewhere. Little did they know that I was from a Maharashtrian village called ‘Vandre’ which had become ‘Bandra’ because the Portuguese and the British could not handle the pronunciation. I never tried to change people’s perceptions as I believed that ultimately it was me as a person and as a police officer that would matter to them, rather than my origin, language, caste, creed or religion. Most of the time
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