Since I have come to Mumbaland and have managed my finances independently, I am so habituated to paying for things I consume that I find myself reaching for my wallet soon after having completed an elevator ride as if ready to pay the elevator for its service. And I do get surprised when the elevator lets me go off for free. I mentally thank it and move on. And then at the entrance to the office, when the guard opens the door form me, my hand twitches again and reaches for the wallet but I correct myself. Similarly I make imaginary payments to the water cooler. I make payments to my boss after she has talked to me and think about leaving a tip if she has been particularly nice. I pay the taxi walas for not abducting me (especially after leaving my cell phone in a taxi and walking into a mugging) and the BEST for not running over me.
And of course I have improved my immunity for throwing money further by buying certain special packages including a 7 rupee tea which tasted like the liquid they used to pour on PoW’s in medieval times to coax them into spilling their guts as well as their boss’ and other similar articles like a 10 rupee shirt wash.
With all this financial pressure I find it hard to digest missing articles. Recently I found that someone, most probably one of the shady room attendants preferred to steal my soap with its soap dish. He preferred to steal it over my deo. bottle that was also kept on my bed alongside it. I think he probably figured out that I will smell him out. I have appeased myself by thinking that the loss of a soap dish and soap is not much in lieu of the wisdom that the next time I should think of forgetting anything on my bed only if I am forgetting myself on it too. And the rate at which my forgetfulness is increasing, it’s not impossible for me to do that one of these days.
One thing is for sure that these room attendants are not going to stop. They consider it a dark side of their profession, the more glorious superhero side. Its not you ordinary superheroes of ideal character that they seem to play but they rather the heroes with confused, gray personalities swinging between spells of reserved behavior and acting like a kleptomaniac. It appears this breed of superheroes comes across as more intriguing and based on the assumption that girls believe that if it’s a guy you can take to your parents, he is not boyfriend material. Anyway, they seem to be conveying the message, ‘Now lookie here buddy, if it’s out of your cupboard it’s in my area. And things that fall in my area belong to me.’
The only solution to this problem is that I will leave nothing to chance and zonk my brains over planning and executing a perfect security system which is way ahead of anyone’s thinking and losing myself in a heap of locks and keys, numeric combinations and the intricacies inventory management.
The deal is that, had it been only the attendants that acted suspicious, it would have been still alright but it seems that the whole room wants some part of my possessions. I think the time has come to stop using the euphemisms and start calling it ‘Nami-baba and forty-four thieves’ rather than ‘Nami-baba and forty-four roomies’.
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