A thief

It was Saturday afternoon, cleaning day of the week, for every body. Bathing and washing dresses have already been finished and sun drying our beds and blankets have also finished. So we were back of the kitchen garden which was located at the Statue yard. Because its time for us to clean our head, from our room nanny. It was one of the most painful task. They used to use very sharp hand made bamboo comb specially designed for this task to pull the head bugs and at times it used to made bloody scars on our head. Needless to mention, it used to bring tears in our eyes due to sharp pain. If we seek any opportunity to avoid the cleaning process, it should not surprise any adult.

I was not the exceptionally clean one, in the group, not needing that cleaning but I needed to escape from it, due to tear jerking process to clean our heads. Just then Moti Didi, came to rescue me. Its not that she could voice against me with nannies, but she needed my help for one task, and that work helped me to get out from, my turn of the cleaning my head. If my room nanny saw them borrowing me then they would not allow me to sneak out from this so, she pretended that she is checking her clothes; whether its dried or not but her intention was not to check her dress, she gave a gentle nudge on my head with her hand and as I looked up she spoke with her eyes to follow her. I did quietly sneaked from the place and then followed Moti Didi, meekly. On the way, we were joined by one more person but I do not, remember her name as in future also Moti didi, was the only one with whom I kept doing this work. ‘Work’ may be the wrong word here to use, in fact I was about to involve in an act of theft.

There was this room, when I grew up then I came to know, that it was a storeroom for the Magazine ‘Balak’, which NCO used to publish every month. Then again the word storeroom does not suit here exactly. Old stocks of magazine used to be dumped in that room from the upstairs storeroom and mouse used to run all over it down under.

I could have been around ten years old and I needed at least two more persons help to climb on the window, which glass pane was broken and from where I could enter in the room. The pane was so small that first, I had to insert my head to enter in that room and then my body. Moti Didi used to give me instruction to look for a particular story in that magazine or the color code of the magazine and then I had to look for those particular magazines under the piles of dust covered room.

In that room, there were not a single space available where I could keep my feet without stepping on top of book and the books were thick enough on the floor, and on the stairs which let it to top floor, it took me, many years to thin it out. I never asked them what they did with this magazines, or I was just too small to ask them, “why they needed it ?” Their pay for my work was like a prize money, which was more than enough. All I asked for was to let me read all, I mean all the old stocks of magazines from each steal, which they agreed easily. Old publication was ten times better than the latest publications in terms of story, paper quality and binding point of view. After reading it, I used to return it to her. Later on as I grew more, I came to know that, she and the others who were involved in this kind of act used to sell magazines to their class mate at Rs 1. per magazine.

I think she and the other who was involved in this case was selling just the old stocks of magazine for their pocket money. There was particularly demand of a magazine, which contained a story about Rupa and Raju’s story. It made all the readers cry, yet they loved to read it. Some of the boys and girls were involved in selling sneakers and clothes, which of course was donated by big organizations, of course stolen from the storeroom’s and at times from their own room mates.