Saturday, August 25, 2018

My detective Mother would have put Sherlock Holmes to shame.



Last fortnight, I had the misfortune of realizing that I had lost my scooter that was parked in the basement of my apartment complex. The scooter was unused for the last 15 years and I was not sure as to when I had seen it last – after the last Aayudh Pooja. The fact that carrying a UP registered movable asset in Karnataka is more of a liability, is another story for another day. For now, let me just tackle and overcome this weird feeling of losing a personal asset.

The fact that I stay in a well secured complex where I pay a monthly maintenance that may be higher than the rental of a decent apartment, is not amusing at all.  But the fact that there was complete apathy from the office bearers of my association, in terms of helping me to trace the sequence of events and possible lapse in the security, is something that was disappointing and frustrating.  Again, that is not the story I want to cover today. But my attempt to uncover this mystery brought back my childhood memories of a theft that took place in my house at Kanpur and the after events.

I was too young at that time – may be studying in 3rd or 4th standard I suppose. So, it is some 40 or 45-year-old memory but somehow it is very vivid in my mind even today.  We had a regular maid for the household chores by name Rampyari. Quite trustworthy – as it used to be in those days. To the extent that one night she was thrown out by her husband and she had taken shelter in our terrace for the night before the issue got settled between them.

One fine day, my mother realized that Rampyari had suddenly disappeared from the house, while still on to some regular chores. Much later, my mother found that her Godrej almirah and the locker inside were unlocked. And on further inspection, she found that her most valuable and precious necklace – both in terms of monetary and emotional value – was missing.  Only after joining together the sequence of events that she realized that she was robbed of the necklace by her ‘trusted’ maid servant.

The police investigation followed and, without any surprise, nothing could come out of that. Call it the impact of a heavy financial value attached to the necklace or the immense sense of personal loss through a breach of trust – the same that I feel today – my mother became restless and started to probe further on her own. Today, I can imagine how difficult it would have been for a typical orthodox Chennai bred Tamilian lady to traverse through all the maze of this entire trail of her investigation in a primarily Hindi speaking city of Kanpur.

She started her probe by visiting the house of Rampyari at a chawl like building – at Idgah colony, if my memory serves me right. She found out that Rampyari had actually eloped with a neighbour named Rajkishore, who was a police constable.  Rampyari’s husband Mahavir had no clue about her whereabouts. So, then my mother started tracking Rajkishore. She found out, from some other neighbours, that Rajkishore had a relative, who used to pull cycle-rickshaw and was attached with a rickshaw-stand at a distant locality called ‘Naugharha’.  Next she went on to trace this rickshaw-puller named ‘Baggad’ but without the luxury of current day communication channels, it was very difficult those days to contact a person without a home-address. I assume she left her address with the rickshaw-stand and one fine morning this person – Baggad – knocked at our doors.

As Baggad sat outside our door, my mother served him tea and snacks and had a long conversation with him. The person indeed had good amount of information and told her that Rajkishore had taken Rampyari to his native town of Farrukhabad and perhaps had sold the necklace there to a jeweller to get some cash.

My mother broke the news to my father that evening, with complete details of her probe. My father was perhaps not aware of all this investigation being carried out by mother – everyday, after he left for office. Now, Farrukhabad was a completely new place for my parents and finding out a stolen piece of jewellery, with just a photograph of the jewellery (I think it was my elder brothers first birthday photo) to identify the same and no other information, was something impossible to achieve.

My apartment complex in Kanpur had a few single rooms at the 4th floor terrace and a lot of students from nearby towns used to stay there during their college studies. One such gentleman by name Dixit, used to stay there and study and as my mother was very social by nature, she would have hosted these boys for a tea and snacks on some festivals. The only other information she had was that Dixit’s family had a famous music shop by name Dixit Radios in Farrukhabad.

One early morning, with that little piece of information, my parents traveled to Farrukhabad. They found that music shop easily and could meet Dixit within no time. They narrated the entire story to him. From there, Dixit used his network with some local official – who perhaps was responsible for the quality control on gold shops. He was well aware of the shops where such stolen ornaments were sold and took my parents to one such shop.

May be our good luck or the influence of that Government official, the shopkeeper heard the complete story from my mother. He also looked at the picture of the necklace that my mother was carrying. My parents further apprised him of the sentimental value of the necklace and that they would not mind paying up for the same.

After some discussions, the gentleman shopkeeper opened up. He told my mother that such stolen jewellery is generally melted immediately but he liked the typical south Indian design of the necklace very much and hence decided to retain that. The shopkeeper further told my parents the amount that he had paid to Rajkishore.  He also told them that had they come down to the shop with the police, he would have just passed on some message to his team to immediately melt the necklace and they would have never found out.

Late evening, my parents returned to Kanpur.  My mother was beaming with pride and satisfaction. She had singlehandedly managed to recover her favourite necklace. It would have taken a couple of months for this whole exercise but her sheer tenacity and unstinted faith on a positive outcome kept her going on from one clue to another. And therefore I say, given the situation, given her constraints and given the lack of support from the system, this whole trail would put Sherlock Holmes to shame.
And today, I feel helpless – with eight cameras in my apartment complex and some 8 security guards deployed 24x7 to protect my property – someone flicks away my asset. An asset that was my very first purchase after I started working and hence had a sentimental value. With a non-cooperative environment, I have just given up on that. But I am sure, if my mother was alive, she would have persuaded me to trace out my scooter from wherever it was. For, the Sherlock Holmes in her would have never given up.

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