Take care of your wallet. It is festival season. The shopping areas are teeming with pickpockets,” my wife warned when I stepped out of my house on an errand. There is no dearth of festivals in almost all months in our calendar and I get cautioned frequently.
I had an encounter with a pickpocket early in my life which had left a deep scar in my mind. So, I am extra conscious about my personal belongings while venturing out of the house.
When I finished college and remained unemployed for sometime, a relative suggested my father to send me to the then El Dorado, Bombay, where I would surely get a job. Accordingly I was put in a train bound for Bombay to seek my fortune.
After a few weeks, I got a job. I lived in Chembur with a relative and commuted everyday to the Victoria Terminus to earn my bread and butter. The trains used to be over-crowded. To save time, I used to detrain at Kurla and board a fast train with limited stops. One day, I was holding on to the overhead strap with my left hand since my right hand held some books and a packet of stuffed rotis packed by my host.
Consequently, my pant pockets were not guarded by my limbs. While alighting at Kurla, there was heavy jostling of passengers. After I got down at the platform, I sensed that my pants had become lighter. When my hand felt my pocket, I realised that my purse had done the vanishing act.
The purse contained a monthly season ticket and a princely sum of twenty rupees. It was hard earned money and a pickpocket had practised his art on me. I was panic stricken. I did not have a ticket to travel and money needed to buy a fresh one. If the ticket checker caught me without ticket, I could end up in lockup. There was no landline phone in my host’s house. Smartphone was not invented yet. I could not contact my employer also.
I decided to walk back to my living quarters by the side of the railway track to avoid confrontation with a TTE. Though the distance was not much, the humidity and my mental state made me sweat profusely. When I reached my host’s house, I found it locked, because the inmates had gone for work. I did not have a key. Whatever money was left with me, was locked up inside the house in my suitcase. Fortunately, I had chapatis rolled up in my hand for lunch. I spent the rest of the day on the steps of the house, till an inmate having a key arrived in the evening.
Email: mailpsubramanian@gmail.com