THE LIFE LESSON I LEARNT THE HARD WAY

To all who should know

Today wasn’t just another day.

It was bad. I didn’t expect it to turn out like this.

I started the day auspiciously by attending the morning Sunday mass at St. Xavier’s and back to the hostel mess for breakfast. In the heat and hurry of setting up our brand new hostel rooms, a friend and I decided to visit the local market to get a mirror, curtains, lock and the like.

On the way there, in the autorikshaw, a friend called asking about my whereabouts. Oh, I was off to Sunday Market, to get a mirror for my room.

Sunday Market. Ravivaar Bazaar, they call it.

A place where you get almost everything. A market of excitement. Little toys, strange antiques, books, spare parts, livestock, trunks, tools, fruits, empty wine bottles, clothes, there’s almost nothing this market doesn’t put up for sale.

Best visited in the morning, the marketplace bustles with people, mostly locals, buying, haggling and selling under the heat. My friend Sabya, and I, got down from the auto and walked along the street, looking for someone selling mirrors. We found our man a short walk ahead, enquired about the prices, I made my choice, and we asked him if we could leave the mirror there, and collect it later after making other purchases. He happily agreed.

So ahead we walked, looking for a store selling plastic plants or leaves, to decorate Sabya’s room with. It was peak time, and in the throng we pushed and banged into many people, and old man with curious spectacles, a woman covering her face with a ghungat and walking quietly behind her mother-in-law, a mother and two kids jostling about.

We kept walking ahead, enquiring about artificial plants, in the hope of finding a vendor. Everyone said to keep looking for it ahead. Towards the end of the market, the crowd had thinned and a few spare vendors were selling steel vessels. When we asked them they said that the market ended there.
We began the long walk back. In between, two little kids just brushed past me, walking ahead, speaking excitedly in Gujarati.

They reminded me of the cute little kids who sat down beside me and watched as I was sketching at another market place in Teen Darwaza. Dusty, street children but happy, jolly smiles.

We strolled on. Late Sunday morning, at a bustling marketplace. It felt exotic.

Then suddenly, the same kids pushed past me again. A boy and a girl. Jumping shouting, they quickly disappeared towards the other side of the throng of people. I thought, we were probably passing through the same place again.

We were walking back to the vendor who had my mirror.

That’s when it happened again.

For the fourth time.

The boy was wearing a yellow shirt, the girl a black sleeveless worn out kurta. Short, around 10 or 11. The boy was younger. They were quarrelling, and the boy shoved the girl. Again and again, specifically towards my direction. The girl crashed into me and I lost my balance, falling onto a parked car behind me.

Sabya caught my wrists and pulled me up. “Careful,” she said, “They could snipe your purse away.”

Shocked! I quickly looked down, I still had my purse in my hand. Safe, unopened. I relaxed.

She still wanted to go somewhere, shopping. I wanted to catch lunch. So we went our separate ways.

I got into an auto back to my hostel. When I almost reached there, I dug my hand into my sling bag to call a friend, Geet, and tell him that I’ve reached back.

No phone. The sling bag was unzipped already. And there was no phone.

I panicked.

The kids.

This was what they took.

I was shocked and upset.

I was always careless. But never have I felt a pain as shocking as losing my phone at a market place. At Raavivar Bazaar of all places.

I began to pray. Dear God! Please let my phone be with Sabya. Please let her have it. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible.

Back in the hostel, I got two friends Asha and Jyothi, to help me find Sabya’s number and call her up. She was out of coverage area.

I decided to quickly keep the mirror in my room and revisit Sunday Market. Sabya came back to the hostel 2 minutes later.

And no. She didn’t have my phone.

What she had, was a cut at the lower half of her sling bag. A fresh cut. But nothing seemed taken. Looked like a try.

She agreed to come with me to find my phone.

We visited the police station first. They made us wait. They said that we were at the wrong station, and that the area in which I realized that my phone was stolen, fell under a different police station jurisdiction. After a while, they said they’d help. But they advised us to talk a long walk and come back later, since there was someone else they had to attend to first.

We felt like they wouldn’t help us.

I asked Sabya if we could go to Sunday market and see for ourselves. We went. I thought, now they probably wouldn’t linger around there. They would be long gone. Still we decided to give it a try.
There they were! A stout Mother, in a saree and the two children, a girl and a boy. They were walking through the market place together.

We followed them. They stopped somewhere. The girl noticed us. She looked frightened. She quickly whispered into her mother’s ear.

Her mother turned around and looked at some clothes being sold, picking up shirt and pretending to be engaged with something. Sabya tried photographing them. The mother noticed, and bent down to look closely at the clothes, to hide her face. I had my eye on the boy. He had a cloth bag over his shoulder.

Here, I made my second mistake.

We approached them. I told them, “I know you have my phone with you, please give it back! Please return it.”

They began declining it. The boy quickly gave me his cloth bag.

“Have a look!” he said, “We have nothing!”

I continued, “I’m pretty sure you have it, please! If you’re willing, I’ll buy it back from you! So please give it back!” I looked at the boy and asked him personally too. He coolly replied, “We really have nothing.” I looked at the girl and asked her, hoping at least she’d buckle. She remained silent, uneasy, and her mother intervened. With great pomp, she swore on her son that she didn’t have it.

The cloth bag had tiffins in it. I didn’t open them. Which I slightly regret now. Sabya walked in front and took a photo of us, including the mother and kids. The son’s face was turned however. The girl asked her mother, “Do I have to undress to convince them?” The boy held up his arms, “You can check me,” he said. The passers-by began to intervene.

“This is a marketplace. It’s easy to lose a phone here.”

“Are you sure you haven’t checked your own bag first?”

“You should have been careful.”

“There’s no point in this, you won’t get it back.”

A small crowd had gathered. And the woman, with her children, jumping at this opportunity of a crowd cover, very quietly slipped away.

But we noticed!

We burst out of the crowd and ran behind them.

They got into an auto.

We pushed against the thick masses, and ran behind the auto, clutching our bags. Sabya read the auto’s license plate. She kept repeating it to herself. She repeated it to me, I learnt it too. She saved it on her phone. The auto got quite further away from us. Into the distance, I just about glimpsed it turn right.

Sabya looked up from her cell, “Where did the auto go?” she asked.

“It went ahead!” I replied.

“Shall we get an auto?”

“Yes!” I replied.

We quickly looked around for an auto. We were losing time!

We soon found one coming our way and stopped him. Sabya asked him to quickly turn around and go in the direction straight, where we’d seen them go.

The road diverged both left and right. “Which way?” Sabya asked.

“Right, I think” I was not sure.

We went up the right lane a little. That’s when I spotted the three of them walking back in the direction of Sunday Market! Back in the direction we came from!

I cried for the auto to stop.

We got down. The auto walla asked for 15 rupees. I fiddled my purse for change. Fifteen, fifteen. I found a 5 rupee coin. By the time I paid the auto walla and looked back, they were gone. We walked in their direction back into the market. We looked for them there, but they were not in sight.

My hopes had begun to falter. We went back to the station. A policeman was busy typing something.

He asked us to wait. He took his time. I couldn’t help glare at his nonchalant nature. Then he turned and asked us what happened. We filled him in and something we said caused him to smile. Some other policemen came too, to listen to the story. “Wow you girls are pretty bold!” someone beamed.

For them, it was just another incident, another petty case. But for me it wasn’t to smile about. At all.

Yes, the phone itself was a good one. An Asus Zenfone. But more than that, my mind was running through everything I stored in it, and a deep pang burned in my chest.

All the photos I had ever clicked with my DSLR, was stored in my phone.

All my selfies, dance videos, music.

Some of the music that I composed, was in there.

Everything was lost. Or to be misused.

No back-ups.

No security other than the usual screen lock.

Something about the worth of what I had lost set in. And it hurt really badly.

Perhaps it would have hurt less if the phone was something I paid for. I really want to apologize to my mom and dad; they always provide for me when I need something, even without asking. They always ask me to be safe, especially is such public places, and to be wary of such evil elements in the society. Yes, I knew they were right, but I didn’t understand the seriousness of what they were warning me about, not until I experienced it first-hand.

The policemen dwelled on the chances of them still being there at Sunday Market. They agreed to come with us to have one last look. They took us in a police van, and two policemen in common clothes followed us around as me and Sabya tried hunting for them.

In the heat of the day, we were worn out, and the thieving family was nowhere to be found.

We returned home. Back to the hostel. My parents will help me block my sim.

Ravivaar bazaar. Never will I see that place in the same way again.

Now it’s a market place of stolen things. Forgotten things. Where stolen things are bought, and things are stolen. A deep racket of robbery runs beneath the façade of a busy market place.

Everyone, please be vigilant. Don’t make the same mistake I did.

And don’t call me. Not until I get my sim again.

Reshma

July 18th,  2016