Expense Account, Mint
In the days when TV dinners took on a new meaning, when the stories about alleged wrongdoing in the preparations for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) became the meal itself at dinner time in homes across the country, I heard this story. One of the scam accused walks into a swish south Delhi Chinese restaurant with some friends. As they settle down with the menu, diners at tables around him notice who he is. Some shift in discomfort. And then in welling anger. At sharing space with a person who by then, had become the face of corruption in India. Then the unprecedented happens. As a group, the other diners ask him to leave. There is a scene. The management is called in. He is booed out of the place.
The story has the feel of an urban legend (these are usually based on an untrue story which acquires a life of its own) but may be based on some truth judging by the public reaction at the opening and closing events of the CWG. Public displeasure of corruption and the corrupt is a new weapon that middle India is experimenting with tentatively.