Just Musing

On  Muggers  and  Prowlers      

Hi Friends,

                When I went to New York in 1984, several  friends had warned me against moving around in the city late in the evenings after dusk, when it gets too risky to venture out all alone in Manhatten streets for fear of getting 'mugged' by a ruffian. Until then, I used to think that mugging is just 'cramming or rote learning'  or what people do in their school days just before the exams. In New York, it meant  what some people did to strangers on lonely roads to rob them of their jewelry or wallets at gun point. It's only in the big cities like London or New York, or Mumbai for that matter, that one is most likely to get mugged, probably because that is where the most gullible tourists or the rich businessmen visitors are found. They are usually new to the place, carry loads of money with them and so become easy targets for the prospective mugger. 

                In any case, I found from the Internet, that to avoid being mugged in a big city like New York or Mumbai, there are certain "Do's and Don'ts" that one must follow most diligently:  "First of all, when you walk down the street act confidently as if you have been staying in the city all your life.  Walk at a good pace sticking out your chest and pushing back your shoulders with your head held high and wave occasionally at a  passer-by as though you have seen an old friend or acquaintance. In other words, walk with a sense of purpose. If you are wandering aimlessly, look lost or nervous, then you are more likely to be an easy target for any mugger. On the other hand, if you look cool and confident, the mugger will, in all probability, leave you alone and give you a miss."  All the same, what do you do if you still come face to face with a potential mugger on the street? 

              "Whatever else you may do, do not shout, "Help, police!"  Studies have shown it causes the police to flee from the 'scene of crime'  while at the same time, it attracts attention of even more muggers. Instead shout, "Hey, this man is giving free passes for Jojo's Cabaret show!" and the mugger will vanish like magic. If you sense danger or if you are being 'stalked', then immediately move towards a more populated, safe area like a cafe. If you know Karate or Judo, don't even consider defending yourself by giving him a free demonstration of your skills. For all you know, he may be armed and faster than you in pulling out his gun. If you have a knife, don't pull it out on him for it may only prompt him to pull the trigger. Using a pepper spray may be a better idea. Remember, fighting back only increases the risk of harm to your person." 
              It is best not to carry a lot of cash with you and if you do, don't lie to him that you have no money on you. He has done his 'homework' well and already has a pretty good idea of how much cash you have. It may be a better idea therefore to give him what he wants; after all your life is worth more than any money you may have in your wallet. Besides, he may even decide to take your mobile or ipod instead of the money! Lastly, be alert. Don't walk like a dumb ass or a country yokel walking in his sleep, listening to lullabies on his i-pod and admiring the pretty buildings around; such a person makes an easy target for any mugger."  When in Mumbai, it may be a better idea to tell him you are from 'so and so' outfit and in all likelihood, he may just say,"Sorry, Boss!" and disappear from the scene!!

                  Many a time, the mugger shows his human side too; you will find him helping a senior citizen or a blind man cross the street or do some petty, odd job for him. Read my own experience in a New York Hotel with a man who, I found later, was probably a mugger; meet him in my next short story,"Encounter with a New York Mugger". It may also happen sometimes that one whom you mistook for a thief turns out to be someone you love dearly, as happens in my second story,"A Prowler in the House".

                 Bye, for now!

Vasant  Hattangadi

* * * * * * * * * *

Internet Humour

       Mugging is no Joke   

      

          A golfer is walking down the road carrying his clubs when he sees an Arab being held up at gunpoint. He pulls out a wedge and smashes it over the back of the robber's head, knocking him unconscious. 

      "You probably saved my life," says the grateful Arab. "I am a member of    

the Saudi Royal Family and I have the power and money to give you anything you desire as a reward."

The golfer glances at his golf bag."Some golf clubs would be nice," he says. 

    

      Two weeks later, the Sheikh's secretary calls him up.  "We've got your golf 

clubs," she says, "but the Sheikh would like to apologise to you in advance: 

only three of them have swimming pools."

.........

    I was walking home down a dark lane with the wife last night, when we were approached by a mugger with a knife. "Give me all your cash and empty your pockets before I slash you the fuck up", he demanded.
      I was just about to give him what he wanted, when my brave,sweet wife said, "You don't have the nerve, you soft arsed ------- ". Out of sheer panic, the mugger plunged the knife into her chest and fled as she crumpled to the floor.
      And they say ventriloquism is a dying art!

..........

    

    Santa Singh was once mugged by two thugs; he put up a brave fight, but finally, the thugs subdued him and took his wallet. Upon finding only two rupees in the wallet, the surprised thug said "Why did you put up such a fight?" To which Santa Singh promptly replied " Because, what would I do if you found the 200  rupees I had hidden in my shoe!" 

..........

    

    My old grandfather was mugged in the park last week, punched in the face and his wallet stolen. The police arrived and took a description of the attacker alongside other details.
"How much cash was in your wallet, Sir?" asked the police inspector.
"About thousand rupees" said grandfather.
"OK, Sir," said the inspector as he was leaving, "we'll let you know if we find out anything."
"Grandpa," I said, "where did you get thousand rupees? I know you don't have that much money."
"I know," said grandfather, winking at me. "But if at all they catch the rasacal, it's going to be my word against his! "

..........

Encounter with a New York Mugger

Encounter with a New York Mugger

     Vasant  Hattangadi   

        It was during summer of 1984,  when I had spent a weekend in the famous city  of  New  York  on  my  way  back  from Wisconsin,  that  I  had  this  strange  encounter with a real life mugger.  I had, of course, received prior warnings  from  many  a  well-meaning  friend  to  be  very  alert  and cautious while in New York.   If you tried to venture out all alone after dusk in NY,  I was told,  you were most likely to be accosted in a lonely  by-lane by some hoodlum  who  would  rob  you  at  gun  point and if he met with any kind of resistance he would not even hesitate to kill.  So,  my  wife did not seem to favour very much my idea of taking a break in New York, Besides,  she  had this strange notion that New York was part of Hollywood and after twenty long years of 'happy-though-married' life, she was not quite sure that I would not sneak off to some faraway island with Gina Lolobrigida! It took me quite a while to convince her that both Gina and Hollywood were at a safe distance some thousands of miles away in Italy and Los Angeles, respectively.  To make  matters  worse,  someone had to tell her that the old English film, "The Naked City"  was  really  a  film  about the city of New York!

On my very first day, I went sight seeing around the Big Apple on a conducted city bus tour. It was a nice, full-day, package tour starting with the Empire State Building and ending up with a boat ride to the Long Island to look down the nose of Statue of Liberty. It was on my way back to the hotel, that I realized that I had to answer an urgent call — err. well, the call of the nature! At first, it didn't seem to bother me much as, I was confident of my own will power. Besides, it was just a matter of some ten-minute ride to the hotel, which, however, soon seemed to stretch to a full hour. Slowly but certainly, a simple exercise in self-restraint was turning itself into a pressing matter of dire consequences. In India, of course, it would never have been much of a problem: all you had to do was to walk around the nearest tree, wall or simply to the edge of the road and attend to the routine business of relieving oneself, with no questions asked In Mumbai. in a similar situation, I would have simply given a 'distress' call to my consultant friend, Muthu J. (J is short for Jallian) from a roadside PCO. Once he knew your exact location, you were certain to get from him clear and proper directions to the nearest "Sulabh" or some such place where you could find some reliefer solace. But. here miles away from my homeland, I didn't know anybody or what's to be done under such circumstances. In London, for instance, where the word 'toilet" itself is probably taboo in polite society. I wouldn't know if it would be "propah" to tap on the shoulder of an Englishman and ask him, "Pardon me. Sir. Could you please direct me, if it's not too much trouble, to the nearest loo? " (last word being uttered very softly, in almost a whisper) and for all you know, you could very well land up in the London Zoological Gardens! In New York, however, life is just too fast for anyone to bother about your frivolous problems. You need not have, of course, any qualms about propriety etc; you just shoot your question straight and you get a straight answer with a straight face: " Dunno. But next time don't forget the diapers. Mister!" or " Just ask the President. He'll probably let you use the White House!" In this respect, I have always felt envious of my neighbor's dog, whose life seems to be so much happier and less complicated than that of we Homo Sapiens. He (i.e. the dog) would never have had to face problems such as the one I was having presently: any electric pole or damsel's shapely leg would equally serve his purpose and it wouldn't make one bit of difference to him whether he was in Mumbai or Shanghai!

As I entered the hotel foyer, the sweet little thing at the reception desk gave me her most inviting look with an impish smile. But right now I was in no mood for any innocent fling or flirting. In my present state of suppressed (e)motions, I had neither the time nor the inclination for such mundane activities. So, without responding to her overtures. I almost snatched the room keys from her gentle fingers, sprinted to my hotel room and thence to the bathroom door, only to discover, to my great shock and dismay, that it wouldn't open! I struggled for some time with the doorknob trying to turn it either way but without any success. Then, in an uncontrollable fit of anger, I tried to kick the door open, but nothing happened. I cursed under my breath and shook the door by its knob vigorously. The entire wooden partition shuddered as if in horror, but the door wouldn't budge even an inch! Then, suddenly coming back to my senses, I realized, it was my turn to shudder at the thought of the damages I might have to pay had the door or the rickety partition given way. So, I forced myself to calm down and decided instead to contact the front desk for assistance. I don't know whether or not the hotel manager realized the pitiable condition I was in; however, he did promise me to look into the matter. So, I could do nothing but wait impatiently for what seemed like an hour and then I called him back again. The manager coolly asked me from where I was calling. He knew, of course, that I was calling from my hotel room, but he wanted to know if I had locked myself inside the bathroom. When I replied him in the negative, he wanted to know what then my big problem was. It took me quite sometime to pump into his stupid brains the exact nature of my predicament. He then told me that his janitor, who also sometimes doubled as a driver, had gone to the airport to drop some guests and that as soon as he returned, he assured me, he would send the fellow to my room to attend to my complaint and until then. I would have to bear with him. In other words, meanwhile, I had to withhold against the "pressure". But, the question was how much longer I could have done it without loss of dignity. I was reminded of my little nephew who once kept constantly pestering his father with "I want to do it. Papa. I want to do it, please."' After ignoring the child for a while, his Papa at last turned to him and asked in disgust, " But, what is it that you want to do, child?" "Never mind. Papa. Done already!"

There was a light knock on the door. Ah! At last!! That must be that blessed driver-cum-janitor, I thought and rushed to open the door. A giant-size, shabbily dressed, colored man was standing there in the doorway, his huge figure filling the entire frame of the door. When he entered the room, a whiff of some foul smell preceded him announcing that he was a little too 'high'. As if to confirm my doubts, with half a crooked smile, revealing a set of extra large, yellowish teeth he mumbled "Mister Hattungo?" or some such thing. During the last two months. I had got so used to these Americans distorting my surname into all sorts of speech patterns that I was not a bit surprised at this new 'innovation" and in my present "pressing" situation, I was so glad to see him that I didn't seem to mind it, either. As my mother would say, it was like sighting God Himself in person!

Giving him a somewhat rousing welcome with a broad grin, I ushered him in courteously towards the bath door saying, "Yes, yes. It's this door, please. It's not opening —jammed, I think. I have been trying to open it all evening, but no luck. I didn't want to try very hard, you know. The whole thing is so damn rickety, I was afraid that I might break it; so, I didn't dare using much force" "Okay, Okay. He in there now?" he asked me. I just nodded not paying much attention to what he was saying. I was at the end of my tethers, now. With the end of my long ordeal in sight, I was getting all the more impatient. "Make it fast, please!" I almost screamed taking care not to be too loud to offend him and drive him away, but just enough to impress on him the urgency of the matter. He tried to turn the well polished, brass doorknob but found his huge hand slipping over it. He took out a pair of hand gloves from his coat pocket and putting them on, he tried again with the same result.

I was like Hans Brinker, the legendry Dutch boy who sat all night with his little thumb plugging a leaky hole in the dike to keep the sea from inundating his village and here I was standing with my hands deep in my pocket, trying desperately to keep myself from inundating. The man presently took out a large pocketknife, inserted the blade into the door chink and with eyes almost half-closed, he worked on the lock for a minute or two like a skilled craftsman. I don't know what he did or how he did it, but when he turned the knob once again with a smart jerk, Lo Behold, the door had flung wide open!

Ah! At long last! Oh, I felt so elated that, had I been a little more demonstrative of my emotions than I usually am, I could have kissed the janitor! I wanted to immediately rush into the bathroom, but suddenly brushing me aside my 'savior' went in himself first. Perhaps, his need was greater and more urgent than mine was! After all that he had done for me, he deserved at least that much privilege and consideration, I thought. Besides, who would have had the nerve to stop a toughie like him? He went in and immediately started searching for something all around the bathroom—behind the doors, beneath the sink and in the closet, while I stood outside wondering what he was looking for. Suddenly, he turned back to me and said, "But, he ain't in there!" as if I had been hiding all long someone there in the bathroom! "Who ain't in there?" I asked him innocently.

"Mr. Hattungo, my buddy." he said coming out. He opened the front door, looked at the brass numberplate on the door and murmured, more to himself than to me," Oh! Thish Number One-O-Eight! I wanna One-O-Three. So sholly." Then, he suddenly turned and walked away. I didn't even have a chance to thank him for his services.

Oh, what a relief, it was! If there's anything called heavenly bliss on earth, then this must be it!! I was now just relaxing in front of the TV with a glass of ginger ale, when, all of a sudden, there was a knock on the door, again. I opened the door to find the hotel manager and an elderly gentleman standing behind him. Before I could even raise my eyebrow in surprise, the manager said, "So, What seems to be your problem, Mr. Hatengady?". "Oh! What problem! I mean, the problem's been solved already by your janitor. Thank you!" " What Janitor!" the manager almost screamed.

" Well.  A tall, hefty, dark man was in here a little while ago and he opened the bathroom door for me, which was very badly jammed. Well, I thought, he was your man." "This man here, Johnny, is my janitor." said the manager. "You must be careful with these guys, Sir. That man could have easily been Joey, the neighborhood MUGGER! He's been on a killing spree lately, you know."

Next day, as I was leaving the hotel, I noticed half-a-dozen policemen hanging around near Room No. 103. It seems they had found the occupant an Afrikaner, dead under very mysterious circumstances!

******** ********

(Published KS, LXXXIII, No.8,p13(August 2002)

A Prowler in the House

A Prowler in the House
       

                     Vasant  Hattangadi     

I must have been around ten years old when, my parents decided that I was now too old to cling any more to my mother's apron. So it was peremptorily ordained that I should start, forthwith, to sleep alone in a separate bed. Lest I feel too lonesome or scared, I was allowed to share grandpa's bedroom, a concession that I had managed to elicit after considerable efforts by way of protests and tantrums. My grand-father or Nana, as we used to call him, was an old man in his early eightees, suffering often from bronchitis and cough, but, he mostly kept to himself busy in his "sadhana" or chanting of some religious hymns or other in a low mumble. We usually met only at bedtime, but except for wishing him a good night I didn't bother him much as we had a silent gentleman's agreement not to meddle into each other's affairs. Besides, after a hard day of play and mischief I used to be so weary and exhausted that no sooner I entered the bed than I would be fast asleep.

There was one small problem, however. Occasionally, I had to visit the toilet in the middle of the night, which I always found a frightening proposition. For, in our house at Dharwar the bathroom was situated at the far end of a very long, dimly lit corridor on the rear side of the kitchen. It was, in fact, an outhouse at a much lower level than the main house leaving a wide opening near the ceiling at the end of the corridor through which a thief could have easily entered the house. To prevent just such an eventuality it was a regular practice every night to bolt the back door firmly from the inside. So, holding my breath as well as pyjamas, I would quickly run down the corridor, finish my business and rush back, just as fast, into the bed to breathe a sigh of relief! There were times, however, when I preferred to remain in bed until next morning exercising utmost self-restraint albeit rather unsuccessfully sometimes.

One night, during one such routine dash to the toilet I got a vague impression that I had seen the silhouette of a person standing there in the darkness in the kitchen ! "Oh, no! Must be a thief!!" I thought as I relieved myself and began perspiring profusely. "What if he had seen me? He will certainly kill me now." The man had covered himself in a thick shawl or something and had also a small turban wrapped around his head. He was wearing a small crumpled 'dhoti' and even in the darkness, I could clearly make out that he was bespectacled. With a small narrow beam of a penlight, which he was waving around, he was frantically searching for something in the kitchen cabinet. He must have been either a very hungry man or fool enough to think that my mother hid her jewelry in the kitchen!

I didn't know what to do. First, I wondered if I should scream and raise an alarm. This would wake up the entire household and then, he would be alerted and he would either finish me off or run away taking me along as a hostage. I thought the best recourse under the circumstances was to wake up my parents and acquaint them with the situation. So, I tiptoed to my parents' bedroom and lightly knocked on the door. Initially there was no response, but after I had incessantly knocked for about five minutes while calling out my mother in a hushed tone it was my father who finally answered asking me rather irritably what it was that I wanted so badly in the middle of the night. "Anna, I feel scared. There is a thief in the house!" I told him rather timidly and my father thundered from inside, "YOU are the only thief in the house, stupid. Now, go back to sleep!"

I was back in bed, sad and disheartened at the (un)expected rebuke. Now, with that thief merrily rummaging through our kitchen, how could I sleep? But, what can you do if your own father doesn't believe you? Suddenly it occurred to me that if only I could entrap the man in the kitchen itself, my father would then take care of him in the morning. So, I stealthily crept back into the kitchen and saw the thief still busy doing his thing. I slowly moved to the kitchen door and pushed it slightly and it banged shut with a loud thud. Fortunately, the thief was too engrossed in his work to hear anything. I then carefully bolted the door from the outside taking care to see that it made little sound.

I returned to bed triumphantly and lay there thinking how I would brag next morning about my exemplary courage in catching a notorious thief. How I would be showered with praise and accolades from everyone, including my father! However, my jubilation was not to be long-lived. For, just then, I heard my grandfather coughing very badly, the sound coming clearly from the direction of the kitchen. "Oh, my God! Nana's in the kitchen!!" I thought "The moment he realizes he's locked up, he is going to raise such a hell. I'll have had it!" Instead of accolades, I was destined for a generous piece of mind from my father. So, I promptly rushed back to kitchen just as stealthily as I had done before and opened the latch on the door as quietly as possible. Grandfather seemed fortuitously unawares of what was happening. He had obviously found whatever it was that he was looking for - nutmeg, mint or perhaps, sugar-candy for soothing his throat and he was fondly chewing on it. For the last time that night, I entered my bed and promptly went to sleep.

Next morning, at breakfast, my father asked me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, "So, finally, did you catch the thief  last night? "  " Well, Almost." I replied nonchalantly. "But, then, I let him go."

Published in Kanara Sarswat,