Chair Stealer

By Dr Maitreyee Joshi

Why had he got caught this time? He had just acted for the benefit of his nephew and the students of his caste. He had just swapped the names of the students of his caste for sending them letters for admission earlier than those who were prior in the merit list and were not of his caste. He just sent the other letters late so that those who were coming in the way of his nephew and also the students of his caste would get it at a date later than the date of the admission interview. But this time Rajesh Sahay discovered it because his son was there too. But he decided that he would get out of this too. He just knew the ways.

He had made these little clerical mistakes and they were always allowed to slip the eye of those concerned or just neglected by them because they were too petty to grab their attention. The other day when he had to stamp the admission forms, he had used the Rs 150 stamp instead of Rs 100 one and then he told the head clerk that he would return the extra money to all of them when they come to submit the forms.

No one ever knew anything during his college days, when he lifted books, money and even toothpaste and soaps from the rooms of his college buddies. He always stored these things safely in a trunk in his room. No one ever thought of checking it.

Yes, no one had discovered what he had done when he had just kept the Biology journal of one of the students in his batch, who had left it on the experiment table and gone to ask a difficulty. She was a bright student and she had completed her journal to the last bit. So what if he just put it in his bag? He needed the sign on the journal to get out of 12th grade. She was anyway capable of writing it again and drawing all the diagrams. It was he, who was facing an emergency of completion on time.

Going back in time, he reminisced how he had on numerous occasions kept pencils, erasers and used other's ideas too when it was the need of the time.

He had never realized, when he had learnt this art of swapping whatever was imperative at that point of time. He remembered his grandma who was an expert in this art. As he thought of her, a memory of an incident arose in his mind.

Once at Bangalore, they entered Adyar Anand Bhavan nicknamed A2B. It served such amazing South Indian food! When they entered, it was packed with people and there was no free table. One table in the corner was free but there were no chairs. A lady was sitting on one of the corner tables and the table had 3 chairs vacant. Probably her family members had gone to get the food since there was self service. His grandma went there and took away one chair. Anyway the lady was busy doing something on her mobile phone. She needed to pay for her inattentiveness.

Grandma was very smart and she went once again and took another chair. This time the lady shouted at grandma and said that she should have at least asked for her permission. Then his dad intervened and banged the chair then and there. His grandma with a swift movement picked one more chair from another table and instructed him that he put one bum on one chair and another bum on another chair and sit, so that no one could steal their chairs during the rush hour.

You know, people are stealers and they deserve this treatment, his grandma had said. He learnt such little things from grandma. His grandma was great. And he heard a stupid mother of a 6 year old telling the child that we must never harm anybody, not even snakes because if not troubled, they trouble nobody. He thought, “How idiotic ! I tell you, it all comes from watching your elders."

By Dr Maitreyee Joshi