Avenging theft
By: Rajbir Deswal
(In The Tribune today)
While setting foot for the UK, a senior member in our group cautioned, “Don’t go to wrong places for you will be in trouble!” The second piece of advice was in the form of a comment, but in a killing and chilling tone: “Some people have a compulsive habit of putting things in their pockets!”
For us this was not only too much, but too demeaning too. Yet, we pocketed the advice. I hadn’t then realised that I myself would become the victim of a near-robbery in an alien land.
I had a pouch ‘stolen’ from my not-so-inviting bag in Strathpeffer, Scotland. I noticed its loss when I needed to transfer the days’ photos, from the camera to the pen-drive, kept in the pouch which I couldn’t locate. I promptly announced a heist.
“What else was there in the pouch?” asked my curious wife. To this very natural query of hers (though I was expecting a quick reprimand too for my being ‘carefully callous’!) I ‘reported’ as if before the police: “Some tie pins, coat lapels, two pen drives, a Seattle-Needle souvenir and some coins worth eight or ten pounds!” Post haste I blamed the theft on the house-keeper.
With initial “tch-tchs’ of rubbishing my apprehensions of the involvement of the house-keeper, the investigation ensued: “But what would she need your cosmetic stuff for? Least the pen-drives!” I justified, “it had some change too!”
“O, come on, they’re professional people. The hotel management trusts them. And do you think they are going to question the house-keeper for your silly stuff; and fire her?” Wife suggested I didn’t make a report. I decided to eat the proverbial humble pie.
Next evening when we returned from Inverness, we found the house-keeper’s trolley in the corridor. I could not resist the temptation of ‘teaching her a lesson’ and straightaway rendered her haul of milk sachets poorer by a dozen, by a quick sleight of hand.
Reaching the room, the wife said she needed some tea bags. While trying to arrange them, I encountered the house-keeper in the corridor who greeted me in her typically Scottish accent, similar to us Haryanvis’ style of speaking the Queen’s English.
I asked her if she had some tea bags. “Yes, here we go!” She put some half-a-dozen on my palm and asked, “Do you need some milk too?” Well, I didn’t really, but something inside me made me forget all reasoning and honest intentions. “Yes!” I said and got almost a palmful.
While returning to my room, I tried to recall with sadistic pleasure, the expression on the lassie’s face, on finding a shrunken pile of milk-sachets. Having wound up the Scotland trip, when we reached London from where we had initially started, I found my ‘missing’ pouch. I narrated to our host the story and my sick mentality to take revenge on the ‘stealer’.
The host came up with a similar anecdote. He recalled the time when before migrating to the UK, he was cheated by a taxi-driver in New Delhi. He asked the latter for a match-box. Having lighted his cigarette, he removed half a dozen match-sticks, pocketed them, and returned the match-box.
The senior member in our group was right. Some people have a tendency to put things in their pockets. And some other meeker ones can be a tad revengeful too.
By: Rajbir Deswal
(In The Tribune today)
While setting foot for the UK, a senior member in our group cautioned, “Don’t go to wrong places for you will be in trouble!” The second piece of advice was in the form of a comment, but in a killing and chilling tone: “Some people have a compulsive habit of putting things in their pockets!”
For us this was not only too much, but too demeaning too. Yet, we pocketed the advice. I hadn’t then realised that I myself would become the victim of a near-robbery in an alien land.
I had a pouch ‘stolen’ from my not-so-inviting bag in Strathpeffer, Scotland. I noticed its loss when I needed to transfer the days’ photos, from the camera to the pen-drive, kept in the pouch which I couldn’t locate. I promptly announced a heist.
“What else was there in the pouch?” asked my curious wife. To this very natural query of hers (though I was expecting a quick reprimand too for my being ‘carefully callous’!) I ‘reported’ as if before the police: “Some tie pins, coat lapels, two pen drives, a Seattle-Needle souvenir and some coins worth eight or ten pounds!” Post haste I blamed the theft on the house-keeper.
With initial “tch-tchs’ of rubbishing my apprehensions of the involvement of the house-keeper, the investigation ensued: “But what would she need your cosmetic stuff for? Least the pen-drives!” I justified, “it had some change too!”
“O, come on, they’re professional people. The hotel management trusts them. And do you think they are going to question the house-keeper for your silly stuff; and fire her?” Wife suggested I didn’t make a report. I decided to eat the proverbial humble pie.
Next evening when we returned from Inverness, we found the house-keeper’s trolley in the corridor. I could not resist the temptation of ‘teaching her a lesson’ and straightaway rendered her haul of milk sachets poorer by a dozen, by a quick sleight of hand.
Reaching the room, the wife said she needed some tea bags. While trying to arrange them, I encountered the house-keeper in the corridor who greeted me in her typically Scottish accent, similar to us Haryanvis’ style of speaking the Queen’s English.
I asked her if she had some tea bags. “Yes, here we go!” She put some half-a-dozen on my palm and asked, “Do you need some milk too?” Well, I didn’t really, but something inside me made me forget all reasoning and honest intentions. “Yes!” I said and got almost a palmful.
While returning to my room, I tried to recall with sadistic pleasure, the expression on the lassie’s face, on finding a shrunken pile of milk-sachets. Having wound up the Scotland trip, when we reached London from where we had initially started, I found my ‘missing’ pouch. I narrated to our host the story and my sick mentality to take revenge on the ‘stealer’.
The host came up with a similar anecdote. He recalled the time when before migrating to the UK, he was cheated by a taxi-driver in New Delhi. He asked the latter for a match-box. Having lighted his cigarette, he removed half a dozen match-sticks, pocketed them, and returned the match-box.
The senior member in our group was right. Some people have a tendency to put things in their pockets. And some other meeker ones can be a tad revengeful too.
1 comment:
very delight ful reading--the article is in a confessional please send some milk sachet --i need them for my tulsi ginger tea--tone --i had a heart laugh reading your article
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