My colleagues EJ always say "we can make a sitcom of Cath's family calling it THE RERUNS OF THE SELVARAJAHs". I agree with her statement as my life is as claimed by Hallmark "life's a drama". Today I continue the saga of my neighborhood. If you have followed my blog a few months ago (www.meandmyinnerself.blogspot.com), I’ve mentioned about an incident of a lorry ramming into a house wall and the electricity pole but two Saturday’s ago the drama started with my home.
I was hoping for a very lazy Saturday-weekend till my mother woke me up at 7am giving me errands to do as she and my dad were going out. Among the errands were to wash clothes and also to cook chicken curry. I love to cook but sometimes it becomes a burden especially when you are hoping for a lazy weekend. So I got my ass to work and by 11am I was done with everything. Parents came back at almost 1pm and I was just lazing in front of the TV watching a movie on Astro. At about 2.30pm I got tired and moved to my brother’s room to have a nap with the air-conditioner (my brother’s room is the only one with an air-conditioner amongst the siblings). When I got to his room surprisingly I was not sleepy, so instead I was surfing with my laptop and chatting with friends via msn.
It must have been about 3pm that suddenly I saw a shadow pass my brother’s windows. I did hear footsteps of someone running fast. At that point I just called “amma?” (mum in tamil) just to see if my mum was out there but I did not hear anything. All of a sudden I was shocked to see some shadow in red shirt pulling my brother’s grill netting and I panicked started calling my mother while running out of my brother’s room. That instant I called my mother saying “Amma someone at the back of the house” and just within seconds I heard my mother yelling “pencuri, pencuri” (as in THIEF). One moment there I was confused if I should run back to the room and shut myself and make a call to the police or did the thieves manage to come in or are they out of the house. Just then I saw my mother running to the hall continue her panic scream with a spatula in her hand. I couldn’t believe I saw the guy just jump over my gate entering our neighbor’s house. Just then my dad and I walked behind the house to see where the two thieves came in from and we found slippers and a hat and that’s when I called 999 to call the police.
The 999 hotline was very effective I would say and they better had been at that point of time but the local police station receptionist they connected me too was not as friendly or customer oriented. All I asked was “may I know who’s on the line please” in order to address the person on the other line but the reply I got was “WHO ARE U!!!?” and I felt the tone was rather rude. So I explained what had happened and 2 police guys came over within 15 minutes. They inspected my house and then asked me if the guys were immigrants but I just replied it’s difficult to say as I saw only the hands from the back and they were fair. The only description I could give was a guy in Red T, fair looking like my mother, blue jeans and one below 35 years old. Just then the policemen told me to go over to the police station to log in my report and asked me to bring the slippers as evidence when reporting. I was like “HUH?”. One minute there my hopes of CSI just crashed. All kind of stupid serial questions in my head such as “me take slippers would that not be tampering of evidence as the guy’s finger prints will be overwritten by mine?”. I was also afraid that if I did not make a report then perhaps the thieves will come back at night to collect their slippers and hat. Just too much happening in my head at that point but I was glad my mother was fine both physically and emotionally.
Just as I was walking towards my room, something just dragged my feet back to the so called criminal scene and to my surprise I saw a guy using a stick to grab the so called robber’s slippers. I opened the sliding glass window and asked me “ye, ada apa apa?” (how may I help you) and he said that those slippers were his. When I asked him whose slippers was the other and he said it was his friends and so was the hat. Apparently the story was, as described by the so called robber’s boss that A saw a snake and was looking for a stick. Looking at A’s reaction rather puzzled, B assumed it was policeman as they were workers without work permits, he jumped over my fence to escape the patrol police that was paroling around my neighborhood. Looking at B fly, A decided to join in the race and at the end of the day who becomes the victims? – My mum and I!!
Looking back at what had happened people say I caused the chaotic drama when I could have stayed calm as nothing was stolen and the guys were just harmless passer bys but to me, I question in my head, if I had not screamed would it still be a story of a passing by man? Something to think about. Though I laugh at the whole scenario now but still it’s always better to be safe than sorry. So yell away is what I’ll keep on doing!.
