When I got robbed...

The last couple of weeks have been a story of stark contrasts: thrice a week, you will find me struggling miserably in the different Finance lectures, especially FSA where half my energy is consumed in trying to hide from the faculty, so that he doesn’t ask me questions and avoid the obvious humiliation. On the other days I have a blast, eating out, disappearing to Mumbai or hanging out in the cafeteria. These days you will find most of the batch outside the cafeteria, surreptitiously checking out the juniors for a potential Fresher’s date. Now that we are inching closer and closer to THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY which will allegedly establish your coolness quotient, on which depends your social life, basically which decides your future, subtlety has given way to outright leching in broad daylight. The next desperate step is to call a “counseling session” for the juniors and force them on dates with random people. The grand finale is to make the junior go through a round of humiliation in the middle of the campus as we make them sing, dance, recite poems, go down on their knees, gift chocolates, and propose in the most hilariously romantic manner- as they say, it’s all in good spirits and it helps if you are a peg or two down.

I guess I had far too much fun in all these extra-curricular activities and others and was generally feeling very happy with myself. So the fall was inevitable! So on Monday morning, like a good little girl who has a FCQ in the afternoon, I decided it was high time I figured out the syllabus and get a hang of things. So I went to the library, kept my purse on the rack outside and went in, determined to make the most of the few hours I had before the exam. A couple of hours later, when I came out for a coffee break I found that my purse has mysteriously disappeared. First I thought I must have forgotten it somewhere else, then I decided it was one of my sad friends with a sad sense of humour trying to play a prank, then I thought somebody had picked it up by mistake, and finally it struck me that there is a vague possibility that I have been robbed in broad daylight from my very own library. And then I got all panic stricken and appalled. My purse had my driving license, my atm cards, ID cards, library cards, my accessories, fair amount of cash and worst of all, my Ipod. After I had done the usual rounds with the authorities, put up a dozen notices, blocked my cards, been subjected to enough sympathy, unsolicited advice, support and chocolates, I sat for the test and royally screwed it up. Then I did my rounds to the police station and the lawyer for lodging a FIR (I think I am done with my share of shady places and shady people). I was planning to go on a shopping spree with the sale season just kicking off. But slight change of plans: I borrowed money from my room mates to have bhelpuri in the evening! I have instinctively visited the library every hour in some faint hope that the thief has had a change of heart and returned my purse, but so far no luck. Even my friends are observing a “one day mourning period” and so nobody has made fun of me in the last 20 hours: kind of a record!

Update on the robbery:
My bag was found a couple of days later in the D hostel, sans the cash, atm cards and sniff sniff, my beloved Ipod :( only consolation, my driving license and ID card and room keys were returned so it saved me further trips to the shady lawyer and the ploice station. But today my room mate's bag was again stoeln from the library. Thankfully she had enough brains to carry all the valuables with her. but nevertheless her pen drive and our room keys have been taken. So we are really worried, that whoever this desperate thief may actually pay a visit to our room. Don't know whether it's a personal vendetta against our room or just an indiscriminant act of deliberate and shameless theft, it's kind of disgusting and I feel extremely vulnerable and insecure in my own backyard.