AAP IDHAR SE JAAIYE

The said post was written by me a while back. Based on true facts, I could'nt have let it pass by

My sister Sukhmani (alias Mani) is working in Shimla and happens to reside with one of the local families. Within the family, there is Anita (younger daughter, unmarried), Aarti (anita’s elder sister, married), Ajay (Aarti’s husband) and Ma ji (Anita and Aarti’s mother). As is the case with homes hills, the house is multi-storeyed with one floor opening to the road, and others up and below it. The family has a departmental store across the road, which has been rented out and couple of paces along the road is the Mandir with its pujari.

Mani has been working in Shimla for more than a year now. She stays on the ground floor and shares the floor with Anita didi, while the rest of the family; Aarti, Ajay and Ma ji reside on the floor below. Anita has committed her life as single and is in early 40’s. She shares her looks with fellow pahadan’s and has really small hands. Both single women share a decent comfort level. Aarti is diabetic and as such slow in her responses and I have not met Ajay and Ma ji, so don’t have a clue about them. I assume, they are fellow participants in any run of the mill Indian family. Enough for the SET and CHARACTERS.

It is early in the morning and Ajay is asleep; Anita wakes up, takes bath and starts making breakfast for her husband. Two things happen here. The bathroom has 2 doors, one having access from within the house and the other from outside. For some strange reason, on her way out she opens the latch of outer door and moves to the kitchen to make breakfast for her husband. In the kitchen, she bolts the door from inside with the intention of not disturbing others with the noise. Enter Mr. C (crackhead if I may say) from the open door of bathroom, placing him straight into the lobby. He fumbles around for things; finds refrigerator, drinks milk; finds caserol, eats last night’s cooked paranthas; finds Ajay’s ironed trouser and shirt, wears it; next come Ajay’s polished shoes and pahadi cap, they go on as well; the final sweep yields Ajay’s wallet with 8000 bucks and the cars keys. All this while, Mr. C does’nt bother keeping low on noise and neither are the house inhabitants bothered. Aarti’s mind has that her husband is up and about, and so the noise. Ajay keeps laying in bed, with consolence of his wife’s absence. Ma ji has it that, the couple is up and the day has risen. While each one is processing plausible explanations, Mr. C is set but for one problem. In the lobby there are many a doors and he forgets through which one had he entered. Trying all the doors and getting no response, he knocks on the kitchen door. Aarti thinking that its her husband, opens. The clothes looked familiar and so did the cap, but then, maybe a coincidence. Mr. C promptly slides down the cap down to his nose and says, “Mein yaahan galti se aa gya hun. Mujhe bahar jaane ka rasta bataaiye”. To Aarti that seemed fair enough, and she directs him to the main door and says, “Aap idhar se jaaiye….. idhar se”. He's on his way.

She returns to kitchen, prepares tea for Ajay, and on way to her bedroom realizes the mess that Ajay had made with things in the lobby. Then she could’nt recall ever nagging Ajay for mess that he never made; he liked order and maintained as such. Probably, the crack of dawn had to do with it and so it struck....ROBBERY! The whole family receives a panic stricken awakening to the weekday. Ma ji rushes upstairs to Anita and Mani and announces the latest. Anita grabs her jacket and runs for the only road there is. Apart from already cited convincing reasons why I call this chap Mr. C, the guy tops it all by following the very same road. It’s a hill, it has a slope, maybe trek up or trek down; but no, he has to follow the road and that too at a brisk walk pace. Sure enough, Anita catches up shortly and recognizes house clothes, gets hold of him and brings him back till the mandir. Get the angle here, I mean getting caught by a woman. The holy pujari in mandir had finally found the means of testing his newly acquired walking stick, and sure enough, couple of blows later on Mr. C he is happy with his investment. The cops are called and they are so not shocked. Apparently Mr. C, was held for robbery 3 days back and was held in one of Shimla’s police stations. Sometime during his short detention the cops found out that the guy was a nut and decided it was best to let him loose. For that, they ask a truck driver to drop him wherever he is going. The truck, apparently, was carrying supplies for the departmental store rented out by the family, and so happened to drop him right in front of the house the previous day.

The wise guy simply chose to rob the very same house.