I was robbed last week. A friend and I had decided to visit Landmark, Chennai's most famous book store that has opened at Spencer Plaza in a new avatar of 35,000 sq. feet of books and else. Lots of the else actually. There I was, happily browsing books, admiring the lifestyle goods, trying out the various comfortable beanbags and rocking chairs. Then I was robbed.
Some slimy, son-of-a-gun had the gall to reach into my handbag and steal my wallet. Of course I should have kept my bag zipped but one hardly expects to be robbed in a place like Landmark. It's a bookstore, for Chrissake! Pickpockets and other nefarious elements are supposed to skulk around theatres, bus stops and such like. Not in places of intellectual pursuit.
Anyway I lost five hundred bucks, my credit card, other people's visiting cards, a couple of unflattering pictures of my significant other and some naiveté. And my wallet of ten years. My dark green Benetton wallet, which has been my most prized possession since my teenybopper days. I was once the coolest person in my lower-sixth class with that wallet.
After racing to the car and looking for it, then calling all the people I had met with earlier in the evening, I bravely faced the stark, cold realization that I had been robbed. A crime had been committed against me. I was a victim! The only damage control exercise that I could manage was to block the credit card. I was told to lodge a complaint with the police station closest to the scene of the crime. (You low-life, I'm booking you.)
Now I will proceed to curse the pickpocket:
May your pocket be picked.
May your favorite wallet self-combust while in your pocket.
May the five rupee coins in my wallet come alive and pelt you painfully.
May your hand be bitten by the pet scorpion that lives in the handbag of your next victim.
May you be shipped to Saudi Arabia where limbs are chopped off for similar crimes.
