It is a Sunday! but I still managed to wake up at 6 in the morning with 12 items on my to-do list (you in my club?). I realized that it was high time that I must celebrate the funeral of all the 12 pending tasks, which were dead-alive all these days, effortlessly feeding on my extra-ordinary procrastination skills (despite my employing of a few time saving strategies).
Though I have embraced fitness all my life (embracing is different from doing... I know! ), it has somehow not been on my list since my coming back from Germany. To feel less guilty I have been trying to band-aid my guilt by replacing the gym routine with a pull-up bar on my door. I tried doing my quick 10 min fitness routine with pullups+situps+pushups and I felt there was neither adrenaline rush nor Endorphin release (probably because of the 12 pending tasks in my to-do list which was lingering in my mind).
I then freshened up and hit the mess (I am punctually regular atleast here - when it comes to food!) and was walking back to my room, there was this security guard standing in the entrance of our hostel apartment. He was standing in style and was very politely trying to stop a person (with a stained-yellow-handbag in his hand) who was walking past him, but the person did not stop, he walked as though he didn't notice the guard and the guard didn't care to make any attempt to stop him further. When I noticed this, I felt something was wrong somewhere (oh yes! an atheist has his sixth sense too) and I asked the security guard to first stop the person with the yellow bag and that something was fishy about him. That is when I noticed that he started walking fast and that is when I realized that he was no way close to a student/staff of IISc. I walked faster behind him and he threw his yellow bag aside and started running, I wonder why I didn't think twice before running behind him, trying to fetch him like a hunter with hunger (thanks to the NGC documentaries).
After about 200 metres of sprinting (thanks to my fitness instructor chandramohan from whom I scavenged a few sprinting techniques who was also an athelete), I held his collar and as he tried to literally nail my shoulders, I jabbed him on his jaw and held him by his hands (goes without saying, thanks to my martial arts guru Swamy for the Muay Thai lessons), he realised he had no way out and started mumbling something which was neither hindi/tamil/telugu/kannada/english, it then came as a shock to me.... He was dumb and could not speak!!! and a couple of security guards came running and held his hands.
He said he wanted to show us something and took out a half-torn sheet of paper, as I read this xeroxed sheet of paper, I realised that he was certified dumb. I was perplexed for a moment, the security guard told me that he must be left alone, but I told him, If I were him, I wouldn't run, I would stop and show this letter right there and not after being chased and caught and thrashed! (Well, reading Sherlock Holmes helps, if not the intelligence of Holmes, you atleast get the dubious wit of Watson :P) I told the guards that I would want them to take him to the central security office and conduct an enquiry before letting him free.
Something stuck my mind at that instance, we had completely forgotten the stained-yellow-bag that he was carying which he threw away as he ran. I went back to the place where we started our running-race, and there I saw the yellow bag lying by the side of the road. I picked it up, it was roughly 3 kgs, there I saw something which quickly permuted all the information to its right place and I concluded he was a "laptop" flicker! It was a semi-new Lenovo 15" laptop that he was carrying. This confirmed several things, that he was acting dumb and that he was surely a thief who had just snatched a laptop from one of the hostel apartments. We took him to the security office and I opened the laptop which wasn't password protected (The owner of the laptop didn't have a gal friend I suppose ;-) ), I went through the history of his browser (coz i was cocksure that an IIScian would definitely have Facebook/Gmail in his browser history), I finally confirmed his email address and we traced the owner instantly.
When I later asked the security guard why didn't he run behind him, he replied saying that these guys are dangerous that they can do anything to escape, hit you with a stone and may even slice you with a knife. Another fellow added saying that he was married and couldn't take the risk while he thought it was ok for me to take the risk as I was a bachelor... Wow, being single helps!!! Daddy mummy listening?
The culprit, roughly a 25 year old chap!
An innocent master's student warned me "hey, god save you! what are you gonna do if he gets back at you, you must be careful". Oh wow! never thought about it (and about your god!) and I do not have my time for it.... I must rush and finish my 12 pending tasks on my todo list!
A follow up email from the security officer of IISc can be found here . The culprit knew several languages, details can be found on the same link.
IISc's quarterly magazine voices has a report in its December Issue...
