Kleptomania or plain thief

• Damak, a young boy was pulled out from the Kanti Ishowri school, where he went to study, because he had come home with a gold chain in his school bag. This is the school where children from affluent class of the society used to go to study. Damak was one of those lucky one who had won his seat, purely due to his good performance to win that scholarship. It was abrupt halt from his scholarship, because a thief like him should not go to the school where the rich kids could not come with gold chain on their neck.

When I grew more, I mean that was well after college, I came to know about the concept of kleptomania and its definition like, an obsessive impulse to steal regardless of economic need. Some say that Kleptomania is the inability to refrain from the urge to steal items for reasons. Psycho dynamic theories depend on a variety of points.

Recently, I saw very interesting story on crime on Indian channel. They were telling a story about a boy and his stealing habit. Santosh as they call him with a given name to protect his privacy, was a son of a man who hold good position in Government office. Its only that his  mother was dead and his father was novice to no how to raise a troubled boy like his son single or at least the story portrayed him that way. Its Indian way of thinking that if a child is raised in a family without a missing parent, they need to blame the difficulty to that missing parent. There are intellect who finds so much sense in that kind of understanding.

No doubt Damak was pulled out from the school, not just punished for the mistake he did; the moment he was caught with that gold chain in his bag. Because, he was growing up in Bal Mandir, so he was a thief. But this was not the case of Santosh.

As a young boy, he used to steal money from his father’s wallet, who did not give him any allowance when he needed or at times demanded for it. As if, that is not enough he even started stealing money from the wallet from his maid that used to work in his home. When things got worse she left the job due to this problem, but relatives of his father pointed at the maid not Santosh for his stealing habit.

When she complained about the problem to the father, he rubbished the complaint, saying that you are making this. During his cross check with his  son, even he blamed it to the maid saying, maybe she wanted to raise and found this way to complain. However, with every loss of money or such complains the father used to find some money in his pockets or his school box but father did not seem to be knowing exactly how to handle it.

As time pass by he started stealing phones from his classmate and started lying to him. His kleptomania never stopped, and when he was in college he stole 4 million in four days from ATM. He by now have become master in hacking pin code from debit cards. He was sharp and never failed in his class despite his keen interest to make money or to have money in his hand like the rich kids have. He wanted to have everything in his hands which rich kids have and enjoyed for granted.

Although, I grew up in Bal Mandir, I do not remember now, that Damak and I were in same class or even in same room. Worse, I don't even know Damak was brilliant enough to be sent to school like Kanti Ishwori. I think he was there only for short period. So, when I wanted to write about it, I had checked it with those who used to go same school. They don't seem to be remembering this incident.

I know I have very bad memory power but this incident has registered there in my vague memory, because I myself was too young to understand this and just too young to pay more attention to further news to this kind of news. Is this that the news was more with the management and not disseminated with the children because when it happen Damak was young too, but what is worth paying attention here is Damak may have been younger than 9 years old then.

When I look back now and try to understand it, with more clarity, that he did not even know that chain was made of gold and it has such and such value in the market. He was just too young to know all that. In Bal Mandir, where we hardly needed any money for this or that, as all our needs were met by others. There was no need to steal gold chain from his classmates but he was a steal and thief and the Santosh in the above case was not regarded as thief. He grew up in family and went on to become a master mind behind the biggest ATM fraud  in India at very young age.

Last time I have heard about Damak is that he have become a good businessman at the age we in Bal Mandir envy, just like the Santosh in the above case. His figure at only 20s became the frame of 40 years old or more. I have not been in touch with Damak for so long and I can't even remember when was the  last time he was in front of me. Here I would like to add that before that gold chain case he was also caught stealing others tiffin box, only food not the box.

Is not this [kleptomania] is a flawed concept that make no sense and trying to give a fancy name to so unsavory of character instead of telling them you are a thief ? Criminal mind is not associated only with poor or needy background, as some psychologist or sociologist would like to inject in our mind by linking some story of Damak or so. It lies everywhere and all we need to do is to pay close attention in that kind of  behavior regardless of their background.