The Theft............

We had a theft at our house last week. Well, our fault. One of us forgot to close the door properly. But the incidents that followed is something that I'll never forget in my life.

I reached home round 9 pm and was shocked to see the door unlocked. With my heart in my hand, I entered the apartment full ready to confront anyone waiting inside. But everything was intact. Everything. TV, DVD player, digicams, ipods, everything. It took us sometime to realize that the only items missing were the jewellery boxes. We acted according to our instinct by calling the Association Secretary who advised us to call the police. But then the drama started.

It was almost 11:30 at night when the police finished their routine checkup. They were still downstairs telling us to lodge a formal complaint, when all of a sudden from nowhere a man appeared and started barking at us. It took us sometime to realize the nature of our fault. What he had to say was that at that time of the night we had no right to call the police and disturb him (We didn't even know who he was). And that if we do this again the police will not come to help us. That we are here for a few days and they will have to bear the brunt always. Although we were out of our wit at the change of events but we finally realized that he was the secretary's husband who had missed his dinner because his wife was out with us.

I remember such an incident happening when I was at home in West Bengal. It was 3 in the morning and a neighbourng house was being burgled. The owner was away in some vacation. The people in the floor below had detected movement and had alerted the neighbours.. But even during that time of night not a single person had hesitated to move out of the house. And here we were being barked upon by a stranger for calling the police for a theft of "JUST" 17000 Rupees. Possibly he would have been satisfied if one of us were looted, raped and killed. That could have been a valid reason for calling the police.

Chennai is the only metro known for being self centered and for closing it's eyes to the rest of India. And I realized I stay here.