The Theft

Indian middle class can be inspiration for many developed countries on how to utilise the resources. They can also be inspiration for poor countries on how to find happiness in scarcity. You may be surprised to see the household stuffs if these middle class, who otherwise would have costed them an arm and a leg, but with patience and over a period of time they achieve their goal

During one summer of 1990s, we went to another town to attend a grand Mithila wedding of our family. Which meant, our rented accomodation would remain vacant and locked for weeks. Our schools were closed and hence it was also a bonus summer camp for us, including all our cousins. 

We enjoyed the month long stay and came back to our home, only to know our home had unwanted visitors in our absence. The thieves. 

It was a shock for us. My parents must have had tough times. All our utensils, new set of clothes, winter clothes, toys, piggy banks and many goodies, that we have forgot by now, went missing. TV was missing too and first loss was, we were unable to watch the next cricket tournament. Those days loans were not available for home appliances and most of the savings were spent on purchasing mandatory stuffs, TV was on top list of us kids, but probably at the bottom of our parent's. The only thing left was the old two wheeler.

By looking at the setup, thou we felt that, the plan was to shift everything to their choice of place. 

My mother had some gifted utensils, from Russia, gifted by my maternal uncle, the first one to travel abroad from our family. Since Russian Rubel were not exchanged those days, he carried a lot of stuffs as gifts for every family member.

My brother, as a child was far away from what he is today. He was an aloof soul in our family, knew nothing about what's happening around. His small little spoon was missing too and my mother had hard time making him understand that the same old cute little spoon is gone and he has to accept the new one.

My brother and I had two piggy banks, made of tin kind of material and which came with keys. The pair of piggy banks were gifted by Laxman uncle, my father's close friend, a bank employee from Ranchi. The keys were intact with my mother, however the entire savings of our life time, the whole 5/6 years were gone. And gone was the safe itself, the piggy bank.

As per my mother, the theft set us back by several years as my parents had to literally rebuild the household from scratch. It was a dark period in my state. The theft incidents were on rise. This was the first incident in our colony

But as most of middle class people do, we survived and succeeded. My brother is now a banker himself and definitely if he has to gift someone a piggy bank, he will be the happiest, to do so. My mother has, since then, built a strong base of utensils, good enough to feed hundreds, if not thousands. My father has built our home so strong that no thief can enter in just few hours.

After the incident, no homes was never left vacant in our colony. A new kind of employment was generated, where a known person was hired to sleep in the houses, during owner's absense. A hefty amount of RS 50/100  were paid to these guys.

Thieves may have their reasons to steal, may be they were needy. But I believe, they would have left the toys and small stuffs of my kid brother, had they known him. They definitely would have spared his spoon, if they knew that my brother will not eat for days, waiting for his small little spoon.