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)
