The *long lost-bike story

The *long lost-bike story

When the insurance company employee smiled at me this afternoon as he was entering the restaurant, which I was also planning to enter, and in front of which I was parking my bike - I felt very embarrassed.

It was not because I was caught ogling at a bevy of tight-dresses emerging from the nearby girls' college. Nor it was because I was so bad at parking my bike. It was not even because I owe him anything - in fact, I met him for a home insurance policy bond his company owes me.

It was because what I told him - that I lost my bike - contradicts my act of parking it. Not that I didn't lose my bike. The fact that I found it again has worked to my disadvantage in front of this man with whom I was bargaining tough few minutes ago and need to continue further.

Want to understand more?? Read on.

I prepared a list of must-dos for today, last night itself. The first among them was to sit on the insurance company to get the said bond. I applied for it with him more than three months ago and didn't get it till date.

Not feeling well - blame it on 3 chilli-bajjis I had late last evening on a stomach that starved the whole yesterday except for a cup of ginger tea - I woke up late and lazy today. I was determined to get done some of the works on the list before going to work. As I started on my day's work, by the time I reached the gate I was already wearing my helmet. What I have (not) found outside was not unusual. So, with still the helmet on, I glanced on either side of the street end to end. Sometimes, my Splendor would be relegated to less honorable spots by some workers - a lot of construction activity is going on in a house beside ours and the workers consider that bikes have to move when trucks have to unload their material. And the bikes cannot move themselves, so the workers shift them.

Since the work has been on for many months, I know some of them by face. Most of them know me as the silent man that emerges from Kukke-Mane (my landlord and his late father are known by their surname 'Kukke'. 'Mane' is Kannada for house) at odd times and vanishes into it at late night hours. Some of them are Tamilians and some of them arrived from Rajasthan six weeks ago to work on "granite floor, pillars and walls." Others who had been working from long since on the house-in-the-making-for-the-past-3-years know that I have a wife and that she went to 'amma-mane' for 'delivery'.

Back to the bike: where is it?
Not to look too conspicuous, I took off the helmet and walked up and down the street - I could not find even a single Splendor, though it is the most ubiquitous bike in India now! By the time I returned, the workers took some interest in what I was going through. Usually I never speak to them. When I arrive, if they are on my way they silently get up and go away. If one of them doesn't see me approaching, others admonish him/her (in Tamil though) in a manner to attract my attention. A dark woman that never did any work, seemingly the eldest of them all, used to ask me everyday ever since my wife left for her mother's place, "delivery aaitchaa?" After Mahati was born she has been enquiring when they would come to Bangalore. I think she shared my answers with the other workers; and she in fact knows the age of Mahati (my daughter), more correctly than I. Her darker daughter, who usually remains silent till her mother speaks out, was standing beside.

Now they all were looking at me with some amount of curiosity. A curiosity that lied to me that they knew where my bike had gone! I mustered some Tamil words and asked the inevitable. All I got was a deluge of Tamil, from which all I could make out was that they didn't know. Also that they thought I had also disappeared early in the morning before they woke up, with my bike. Now, this established the painful reality. I lost my Splendor. My bike was stolen!!

I always kept it outside the gate. There was place inside, but the ramp had a very rude step at the end. Usually at the end of every day I am too sapped out to "step in" the deci-tonner. Instinctively I ferreted for the bike-keys within my pocket and found them - always when I "lost" the keys, I found them safe on the bike, which stands lonely on the road, throughout every night! The hoary adage that on every grain the name of its consumer is written (dane-dane pe likha hota hai khane-wale ka nam), must be true about bikes and their owners also - at least on my bike my name had been written. But it was wiped out now!!!

I return to my house to put the helmet back. I watered the withering plants. Calmly I came out on to the road again. With utmost composure, I asked the contractor's representative (Ameen), the address to the nearest police station. I clearly sensed some of the workers' unpleasantness at the mention of police station. Long ago one night two policemen arrived and beat up one of them - the hapless Tamilian later claimed that he didn't do anything except cursing them in Tamil in a drunken state the night before.

Already Ameen had gathered the news from his workers. He said he arrived there an hour ago but corroborated the claims that the bike was not found from the early morning itself. He also claimed that none of the workers might have been responsible for the theft - trying to clear a thought I was developing but was careful enough not to express. One of them attempted to ascertain that the time of theft was between 12:30 last night and 4:30 this morning when he was asleep.

I read in a Yakov Perelman book in my childhood that boatmen walk awkwardly on level ground. Because they are experts in standing straight and walking on the thin edge of the sailing and rocking boats, they can’t walk straight on terra-firma. I feel that I walk equally bad, having been used to a two-wheeler for the pat 5 years. As I started walking to the police station quite mindful of my walk - I was feeling that I should look unperturbed. Ameen approached from behind and offered to take me to the police station on his bike.

We arrived at the police station with all documents descrining my Splendor within five minutes. All the while I was praying and to a temple I found on the way, I promised a visit and a coconut if I regained my lost Splendor.

I never entered a police station in my life. Having seen them in many movies I felt the insides very familiar. In fact there was a young man sitting on the floor beside a wall, handcuffed and chained to a table, upon which a TV was playing a Kannada movie. On the opposite wall, facing the road a dark be-spectacled policeman was sitting. He was thoroughly enjoying the movie. There were some books in front of him. One of them was open and it had some tables and some entries were made in it with very illegible handwriting.

I explained the policeman the case in Kannada. He entrusted me to constable Anand waiting around the corner, and resumed watching TV. Anand took me outside and asked all the details again. As I was explaining him, I saw that there were many bikes inside and outside the compound. Some of them had a ton of dust each - they must have been there for many months or even years. I could not help dreading the prospect of getting one of them in lieu of my Splendor!!

Anand enquired if I forgot to lock the bike. I showed him the keys, as a proof that I locked it. He exercised a few more investigative thoughts and asked if I doubted anybody. I was courteous enough not to name Ameen's men. I said "no." Anand continued to make me understand how careless people lose valuables and approach police for help; how criminal Bangalore has become of late; how he and his colleagues recover "all people" their belongings. He also mentioned that during night-patrols, they found that bike-thefts are on the rise these days. It seems they caught some "careless theieves" red-handed. The one inside was found with eight cell-phones.

I grew restless. I was very angry on the insurance company. Now I lost my bike, and was feeling as if I lost my legs; how can I do so many works without a bike? If some burglary happens at home, without the insurance policy how can I recover anything? I felt like shouting my heart out on the insurance guy. But he is at least 2 kilometers away from where I was and there is no bike to go!!

As Anand was rambling and we kept ambling in the police station compound, I searched for Splendors and filtered out the non black-lavender colors. There were four black-lavenders, but none was mine. Meanwhile Anand felt like standing at the station’s main gate and talk. Outside the compound wall there were more bikes and a car. "All of them were caught last night," Anand told. There! Beyond two other bikes, I found mine!! Suddenly I jumped at it and claimed my ownership. Anand verified the credentials and led me in.

The policeman at the table, enjoying the Kannada movie opened his notes to take down my complaint but I told him I found my bike! He instructed me to return at 4 pm to see the Sub-Inspector and verify the credentials. I beseeched him to let me take my bike, as I was "not well", "having a lot of work", "have to go to office". He would not budge. He explained how my bike got there.

It seems I forgot to lock the handle. Some thief was dragging my bike last night when the night-patrol found him and confiscated it! "Any bike that enters the police station compound should go out only after the SI consents." I told him that it is as yet *outside* the compound wall. Anand took over now and explained the complexities involved in getting my bike back - FIR, court visits, RTO notifications and more. He reminded I was lucky that the police spotted it in time. "Imagine, had the thief dismantled it and took some good parts!!" He coerced me to "think."

While I was really thinking, it struck to me that he meant without saying, that I could "give *something* and take it." Ameen also requested the constable, on my behalf. He said that I was a busy man and that I was already late to work! I surreptitiously showed my five fingers to Ameen. He replied with his two fingers. I uttered "two hundred" to Anand. Anand reminded me that I am a "big man working at Electronics City" and the deal was finally struck at ‘four fingers.’

As I took out my purse and took four hundred-rupee notes, Anand admonished me for the public act. He swiftly went inside and told me to give the money to Ameen. After some minutes he came out with a newspaper and started reading it. Then the other policeman from inside came and told me to enter my details, including my bike's registration number. He once again verified the bike documents and license. All the four of us discussed the city news for some time. We also discussed about a movie playing in the nearby theater. At the end of the ritual Ameen and Anand "shook hands."

Fifteen minutes later, I was at home, with the bike. I related the tale to the Tamil workers, the Rajasthanis and a tailor who has his shop in front of our house, in their respective languages. Half-an-hour earlier I was thinking that I would tell the police that I doubted the workers as they behaved rudely with me two weeks ago.

I was irritated by the continuous sound of cutting granite stone-slabs for floor, pillars and walls of the famed house-in-the-making-for-the-past-4-years. The stone cutting was taking place for at least the past 7 months and my irritation reached a peak, on that holiday. I could not sleep for even a few minutes that day because of the sound. I expressed my anger to them, and as they responded rudely. I told that I would complain to the owner of that house. I also told them that I would tell the contractor that if the work was not finished in two weeks, I would lodge a complaint with police that this construction activity has become an unending nuisance. The deadline, incidentally, ends tomorrow. I had to see the police one day in advance!

I resumed on my day’s plan. The first work was the insurance stuff. I told the person at the insurance office, that today I am living in unsafe neighborhood and I already lost my bike! It makes getting the policy very critical for me to feel comfortable.

* Pun intended. It is a long story.