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 3^rd or 4^th 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 4^th 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.

A Life Full of Near-Lynching

Lynching is a dirty word. But it has been doing rounds in our midst for the past few months. We have heard enough of this in different contexts – be it a religious belief, issue related to social diversity or a societal threat.  The mob mentality has ruled the roost.  Be it the birth of a new social class and hence the vote bank or the death of a political leader, a set of people can get together and flow their emotions into some gratuitous lynching.

I was keen to know if it was specific to our country but realized that even the US had its own share of this disgrace. As a matter of fact, the word originated in the US, derived from the Lynch Law introduced by William Lynch, as far back as in the 18^th century.

Some of us perhaps have a propensity to impose our ideas and beliefs on others. And when a group of people converge on a common belief, the intensity of the focal point breeds irrational behavior.  As I traverse through my life experiences, I realize that some of the situations carried similar thrust and were just short of lynching.

During my childhood, we used to play cricket at a big iconic ground called Motijheel. On other side of the ground, there was a locality largely inhabited by people of a particular faith. Whenever we had an outcome contrary to the predilection of those boys, we got into trouble. A complete lot from the other side of Motijheel will gang up together to have it their way. The commotion that followed was just short of lynching. We just managed to escape every time, albeit losing a few of our cricketing gear in the process.

I studied in a Government school. Corporal punishment was not much of a taboo amongst the teachers those days. Two of my classmates used to get bashed by every other teacher on every other day. The boys had their own limitations that fell well short of the teachers’ expectations. Sometimes, it appeared quite vindictive and merciless. I wonder if all the eight teachers had gotten together on a given day and time, the result would have been nothing short of ruthless lynching.

Driving on the chaotic roads of Delhi and Bangalore had never been easy.  There have been occasions when I have witnessed an otherwise sane car driver inadvertently brushing through an auto-rickshaw. The ensuing fracas, with a dozen auto-rickshaw drivers surrounding the hapless car driver, had always been just short of lynching. I am sure, the experiences at Chennai and Kolkata would be no different.

And why leave behind Mumbai.  My Mumbaikar friends tell me - If you ever attempt to get into the Virar local while it stops at Andheri station, the result would surely be a case of near-lynching.  I have deliberately used the term ‘attempt’ as I am told, no newbie could ever succeed on that.

As I write this blog on a Sunday, my wife has been reminding me repeatedly of the chores lined up for me. The weekly visits to the grocery shop, the vegetable market and to get the leaking tap fixed. Her tone has been changing with every reminder, I could notice. I am only happy that the God gave me only one wife. Had it been more, the rising tempers could collectively have resulted in another near-lynching.

Boons and Banes of an Innings Defeat

The Indian cricket fans’ reactions have always been mercurial. One day they raise their heroes to heavenly heights and the very next day they throw stones at their houses. The recent innings defeat of the Indian team in England also flared fiery emotions across all modes and breadth of the news media. This innings loss also brought back my childhood memories of similar defeats.

In those days, we used to have only one bat and the owner of that bat had to be kept in good spirits. He was a privileged player and used to get at least two chances to get out – the umpire had little choice but had to pretend - lest he would run away with the bat. Most of us had a penchant for batting and therefore, bowling or fielding were just the necessary evils that we had to carry out. 

Unlike the international cricket, in the ‘gully’ cricket, the teams losing by innings went back home happy as they got the opportunity to bat twice as against the opposition who got to bat only once. The joy of batting twice while making the opposition sweat and toil all over the field was far over-weighing the little pinch of losing the game. On the other side, a few players would be elated to the levels of winning a world cup while there were others who would lament the missed opportunity of a second knock.

In the corporate world, particularly in the IT industry, the term ‘second innings’ has a specific connotation.  There are many employees who, after working in a corporation for a few years, leave the organization for greener pastures. And quite a few of them come back to their earlier organization after a few years, albeit at a higher position and with a fatter pay-pack.  This is colloquially called a ‘second innings’ by the employees. And here again, the loyal employee playing a long steady innings with the organization feels defeated while the one playing two innings laughs all the way to the bank. The innings defeat turns around into a boon for the second inning players.

Coming back to the national cricket team’s ignominious defeat at the Lords recently, I only wonder if these were a bunch of my childhood playmates who thought it was fun to field once and bat twice and let the opposition sweat out on the field with two outings.  Thankfully, these blokes don’t look as cheerful as my childhood friends used to be. They have much more to lose than just sacrificing the Sunday morning for a losing cause.