From a PMO 'rejected' catering bill to a 'stranded' home minister: Ex-UP DGP shares snippets in book

A caterer, who fed a prime minister's entourage in a mofussil town in the early 80s, being denied a Rs 7,000 bill due to mention of chicken in the menu and the administration forgetting to receive a home minister at the railway station on a wintery morning are some of the anecdotes shared in a book written by former Uttar Pradesh DGP O P Singh on his policing experiences.

- 

The 1983-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer has come out with a compilation of his "mosaic of experiences" gathered during 37 years of his career "Through My Eyes: Sketches from A Cop's Notebook".

The top officer retired in January 2020 from the post of Uttar Pradesh director general of police (DGP) after heading the CISF and the NDRF at the Centre. Last year, he came out with his memoir "Crime, Grime and Gumption: Case files of an IPS officer”.

The latest book, in Singh's words, is "not merely a recounting of events but a mosaic of narratives, each woven with the depth and nuances of storytelling”.

"This book is a collection of such moments anecdotes from my life, spanning from my childhood to my years in the police service," he writes in the author's note.

Reading the book is like "flipping through an old photo album", he says.

Sharing an incident from the summer of 1985, Singh, then a newly minted IPS officer-under-training in Moradabad district, recounts the day when he along with the city magistrate and DSP went to a restaurant near the railway station for a cup of tea.

A man stood before them with "hands folded in greeting, head slightly bowed, his expression a mix of deference and desperation".

The city magistrate dismissed him "with a quick flick of his eyes" and said "not now".

A "curious" Singh sought to know who he was?