Hyderabad To Bombay

We moved from Hyderabad to Bombay when I had completed my 3rd Standard. I am not sure how old a child is when he is in 3rd..but thats how young I was. We had lived an eventful year in Hyderabad...the greatest event being the house robbery at our place just a month before we were evacuating.

Hyderabad is famous for jewelery...some really intricate ones I am told...so my mom used to be flooded with requests from Delhi to get them the latest designs...of course they would pay for it...but my ma had to do all the leg work. That leg work resulting in frequent trips to the jewelery stores...invited a lot of unwanted attention from the shady elements of society...which we all were blissfully unaware of till they struck. Luckily...none of us were home at that time but I can still remember the scene when I approached. This is one advantage of moving around cities in childhood...you tend to remember a lot of things.

There were police jeeps outside our building and a big crowd below (yup, we lived in a high rise)...and I was just returning from a friends place. I noticed the jeeps and the people and was curious but did not really think too much till one of them recognized me and snickered saying that there has been a robbery at my place and I better rush up soon. When you hear such things happen to you...which usually happen to other people...so unromantically...it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth...and a general sense of disbelief. I did hurry up to find my mom and sister and at least 20 police personnel. My mom was consoling my sister...who had been the first one to come in and was shocked out of her wits to find the door literally ripped apart. She simply nodded at me...and I moved on to look around. Our whole place had been stripped...they even took my comic books...which I couldn't read properly then but used to browse through. That was my greatest loss...I was unable to comprehend...and to this day I still cannot understand...why they took that.

The entire apartment was empty...and there were police all around acting busy and taking pictures and finger prints. I went to the toilet and saw a constable look at my Dad's after shave and quitely stash it in his pocket. For a boy who is hardly 10 years old...that leaves a pretty darn deep impression...these are the duds who are going to get our stuff back??? I remember confronting him suddenly by showing myself and looking up at him straight in the eye and saying something like..."woh mere daddy ka hai"...the constable mumbled something about checking it for finger prints and quietly replaced the bottle.

I remember feeling a lot better after the bottle was put back...I had...in my own way...fought my overwhelming helplessness and frustration...and had got something back. I suddenly felt elated...and I went and told this to my mom...who laughed out loud...while my sister smiled through her tears. The other cops were looking at us with a puzzled expression...but we gigled and soon started making jokes about where the robbers might be...and how they would have planned this whole thing. In a short while...the initial shock and sadness had faded and we bade the cops good bye when they were done. The main Inspector promised my mom that he will nab them (my mom told me this later)...but my mom knew that thats never gonna happen.

My dad was out of town that day. I still cannot forget the scene from that night...sleeping on the floor with my mom in the middle and both of us on the sides...while she sang to us and we played guessing games about all the robbers names.

We lost nearly every possession we had during that robbery...and because a lot of jewelery that had been stolen belonged to countles people in Delhi...my Dad suddenly came deep under debt to repay those people. Our entire lives were changed by that one incident...and we entered Bombay as mere paupers. But because of the wonderful attitude of my mom and dad both...we hardly register this as a blip from our childhood days. Its only much later that we understood the impact of this on our family.

My mom taught me one of the greatest lessons of my life that night...the best way to overcome a difficulty is to face it and then move forward...and not brood over it.