If One Asks for Your IPOD Give Him Your Laptop as Well

We got on the train in the evening at Varanasi station during the hottest part of June. It was close to 115 degrees in the late afternoon sun, we were sweating and met with a cacophony of sight, smell, sound and mad rush of people. Bright saris in red, yellow, blue and multipatterns breaking down the primaries into a kaleidoscope of colours. Everywhere people sitting, standing, squatting with hand fans. The pakoras were sizzling, fried dumplings of bread, potato and onion, as were katchoris, the Varanasi style deep fried circular flatbreads used to soup up a medley of potato, cauliflower, and green chili peppers. That combined with the stale smell of urine from overflowing toilets, not having been cleaned for weeks, and random cow droppings soft and steamy, with humidity at 90%, on the platform where we waited. The shrill calls for food and chai blended with the low unbroken murmur of toy sellers plying their wares, platform goods being hawked, families following railway porters, army men camped out, crackling announcements and children or grandparents searching for relatives. We found our seats after the list was posted and were soon on our way to New Delhi, a trip of about 12 hours, only to arrive and be hustled into another station experience, yet this is where the story takes a decidedly different turn.

I noticed two youths, one fairly well dressed with baseball cap, nice backpack, tennis shoes and clean shirt. The other was a bit shabby, typical gown wallah, meaning villager, with local chappel, the sandals used by the poor, in brown pant and non descript dirty collared shirt. They were talking and looking very interestingly at the passengers ahead of them, and specifically the passengers’ luggage, as we walked along New Delhi station platform to the exit. I wondered to myself if they were the railway thieves I often heard about, but never had experience with. The crowds pressed us close together and we moved along buoyed along by the rush of people. I decided to see if I was being targeted and I slowed down to a snails pace. The man on my left moved to my right side and walked past, so I relaxed. Then I saw his friend, who appeared to be looking at his ticket in confusion, as I passed him he never even looked up, so I assumed they were just newcomers to the station. I put such thoughts out of my mind and looked for Arasi and Jon who by then were out of the station and standing near the road with a couple of bicycle rickshaws waiting for me. I waved to them, set Arjun down who ran to mama, and began to talk with Jon.

All of a sudden a young man ran past me and bumped into me heavily, I exclaimed, ‘ Arre yaar, kahan jaraha hai? Itne jaldi toe.’ (Hey dude! What’s the rush, where are you going?). He replied in English, ‘My bus, my bus!!!’ I thought nothing of it and watched him rush off. I was merely scanning the crowd, waiting for the others to fix the price with the cycle rickshaws when I saw a flash of bubbly white plastic, just bigger than a cell phone go into a shabbily dressed young man’s pocket who was walking away, about 50 feet from me. I immediately knew it was my ipod!

How I knew for certain that it was mine I can’t explain, perhaps it was seeing the strange bubble white case I had bought in USA, but in one movement I shed my backpack, saw my zipper open, headphone wires half in and out, and took off in a 40 yard dash that would do a Minnesota Viking running back proud. I tackled him in the middle of the street, in front of city buses, motor rickshaws, cycle rickshaws, pedestrians, bicyclists and crowds of people, as I pressed my forearm against his neck the traffic came to a halt. I stunned him by smashing his head on the side of the rickshaw fender a couple times, holding him down I then gave him three quick blows to the face, bam, bam, bam, with my closed fist and yelled ‘Give it back! Give it back!’ He quickly gave up the ipod and immediately made a move to run away so, with ipod in one hand, I stood over him and pressed him halfway up against the motor rickshaw. I gave him a hard left hook, my fist connecting with cheekbone, then another to the jaw, his tooth slicing the top of my hand.

I looked at the crowd around me and saw the policeman standing nearby, so I assumed he would capture him and lead him away to the police station. The man squirmed out of my grasp and tried to run, as the policeman leaned on his lathi, a bamboo cane used for thrashing criminals (and sometimes the innocent) and did absolutely nothing, I was shocked! I just had time to catch the collar of the mans shirt as he dodged between two rickshaws and I heard a ‘screeeiiiiiip’ as the whole shirt ripped down his back, he moved sideways and I was left with his shirt in my hand while, along with the rest of the crowd, I watched him cross the divider and run full bore down the other side of the street, disappearing into the crowd. I was shaking with adrenaline and crossed the street to where Jon and Arasi were standing with Arjun. My hand was bleeding and I was breathing heavily when the policeman came over and said in Hindi, ‘Aapka samman sub tik hai, na?’ (Did you get your things alright?) and then he said in English, ‘You can beat if he has stolen, but we will not beat, it is good if you beat, we will not object!’

In reflection later on I thought about that young man, what made him choose to become a thief marking tourists on the train platform early in the morning? Would I be able to befriend him like Jesus did to the thief on the cross next to him and say ‘Today surely you will be with me in Paradise’? While thinking about God’s character, His sense of justice exonerates me, ‘eye for eye & tooth for tooth’, but thinking about his mercy I am condemned, for I follow a God who came and spent time with the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the prostituted and the criminal, ‘if one should strike you offer your other cheek to him as well’.

Next time I will be ready, not to offer my ipod nor a beating, but my cheek along with a long talk and cup of chai about a God who can change lives.

शांति (peace)

Jai, Aarti & Arjun