The Grand Theft

Disclaimer: All characters and places appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Larceny is not a luxury but an impulsive necessity. It might be the comeuppance of one's lavish attraction to the product at hand and an immense desire to be in its possession, or an attempt to insinuate an abrupt fillip to resurrect one's dwindling self-confidence, or an endeavor to impart anguish to one's tormentor, or an enterprise to seek puerile amusement.

But, I purloined to gratify my quasi-literary inklings.

I graduated as an Engineer half-a-dozen and twain years ago from a technical institute of great repute in India. Four years in college flew by like a breeze. I learnt more about joint engineering, weed cultivation, dope marketing, booze distribution and porn publication than I did about computers chips, e-commerce, data compression, cryptology and bio-informatics put together. All in all engineering was a smashing experience but for that incident during the penultimate week before the graduation ceremony when I decided to introduce myself to the college library and which has forced me to pen this narrative.

Being one of the top technological institutes in India, my college enjoys an astronomical inflow of funds each year from the government. The then Dean made it his obligation to channelize the influx into college's welfare projects. His main area of interest was to inundate the library with imported collector's editions and international journals. But for the non-academic types like me library was a place for exchanging dope and meeting singles.

***
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I vividly remember that sultry Sunday afternoon when I was sulking over India’s loss to Australia in the Cricket world-cup finals. Nothing seemed right around me - life itself lost its meaning and the world its sheen. I wanted to leave everything behind and retire to the Alps to ponder over that dropped catch which cost India the cup. I wanted someone to talk to…seek solace in. But my only roomie was fast asleep lying prostrate on the bed beside me - dead to the world. I pitied at his sleep-induced insouciance which would burgeon into turmoil as soon as he would acknowledge the harsh reality.

I tried to wake him up by registering a zippy spank. He jolted in his sleep and before I could say ‘Hey’, he barfed a chosen expletive and asked me either to ‘f**k-off’ or ‘burn in hell’ – precise profanity I fail to remember now.

‘Crazy bastard’, I shouted back. In response, he pointed his middle finger at me and re-embarked on his dearie enterprise.

Depressed over national team’s failure to create history and flustered by my roomie’s amoral behavior (for which I’m to be partly blamed), I decided to move out without further ado. I planned to walk rudderless until I exhausted myself dead. I had read somewhere that physical exercise, something as comfortable as walking, induced endorphins – the feel good hormones; and I was in dire need to feel good. So I ventured out of the dorm and started to walk.

I ambled across the boulevard towards the college’s main gate. On the way, I passed the neatly kempt rose garden, the Civil Engineering department, the Mechanical Engineering department and the college canteen. ‘This mess serves messy food and is in total mess’, I thought and let out a guffaw. Two pigeons perched high on the nearby pole exchanged glances and pierced me with menacing stares. To worsen the matter, they blurted out symphonious glottal vocalizations in my direction and appeared to be mocking me.

As the reader might have noticed that I wasn’t in the very best of tempers then, I grabbed a stone, took aim and hurled it at the gallinacean couple. The alert and agile birds parted in a flash, the stone missed its mark and invaded the glass window of Dean’s office resulting in a loud crash. No sooner did the stone hit the window than the burglar’s alarm went off with enough sonority to wake the dead.

I darted as fast as my legs could afford, took a detour, plodded on an overgrown trail and made it to the college library which was a few blocks away.

I ran across the library’s enormous vestibule with no security officer in sight and passed the life-sized portraits of scholars, writers, noble laureates and scientists from around the globe - both dead and alive. Once during the sophomore year, my roomie and I struck ‘wanted’ notes announcing hefty bounty on their head. Funny, eh?! However, this is a tale for another rainy day; let’s get on with the one at hand.

As I was saying, I whizzed across the vestibule as if pursued by a thousand grey hounds, past the portraits, through the glass door and gasped for breath on the library’s threshold. The two-storied room was humongous and was lined with rows of books with no horizon in sight.

I noticed approximately eleven heads with eleven pair of eyes pop up at regular intervals and greet me with baleful looks. I noticed a pair of lips claw at me in placeable motion; I’m no lip-reader, but I cognized that they tried to receive me with the choicest expletives known to mankind. I imitated the lip movement of my nemesis and flavored it with a homicidal look. In a jiffy, all eleven heads with eleven pair of eyes stooped and resumed their pedantic study.

I had no time to loose. I threw a quick glance over my shoulder; yet no one was in sight. I made it to the staircase on my left and climbed it with divine acceleration. I had to hide in the library until the heat skirting the curious case of “Dean’s office smashed window” died down. I decided to hide in the aisle lined with comparatively thicker books.

As my luck would have it, I stood adjacent to the aisle titled “Organic Chemistry”. How thick are the OC books? OK, let me put it this way. If someone was to compile all the swearwords known to and spoken by one billion people in a book, that’d conclude one, yes, just one volume on OC.

Without second thought, I dashed into the aisle and stopped short to witness a sensuous lip-lock in progress. I tendered quick apologies and made my way to the aisle farthest from the library’s entrance.

It was lined with comparatively thinner but hard bound books, imported perhaps. I did not bother to spare a dekko at the aisle’s nameplate; I cared less, anyway. I made myself comfortable at the settee and looked around. Hardbound copies of classic literature with gleaming gold and silver embossed spines beautifully adorned the shelf which also irrefutably underlined the cataloging skills of the librarian. By the look of the aisle, it appeared unused for years.

In any case, I had all the time in the world to kill. So, I decided to grab a book and indulge in some light reading.

“1984” by George Orwell was a beauty to behold. The jacket was pure leather – lamb skin perhaps, with flexible sewn spine and milled sides. The book’s title followed by the author’s name was embossed both on the cover and the spine in brilliant gold.

“1984” sounded more like a historical than a Sci-Fi novel until I flipped the cover open and read the synopsis on the jacket. I was mighty impressed by the theme and was eager to read Winston Smith’s intellectual rebellion against the oligarchical dictator of a political party named IngSoc.

As I turned the first page, PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE invitingly caught my attention and persuaded me to read on.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…”

***

After I experienced a faint pain on my nape, I decided to steal a glance at the wall clock. It was dark and the clock hands were barely visible from a distance. I dilated my pupils and regarded hard at the clock until I discerned that it was past eleven. I realized that since I had skipped dinner and that I had to hit the bed famished, I decided to read on for a few more minutes.

I hoisted myself up the settee after my back gave in and dreadfully hurt at the end of the spine to what appeared to be lumbago. However, I was very eager to know whether or not Winston Smith succeeded in averting the insidious designs of the Big Brother in proliferating propaganda and indulging in illegitimate historical revisionism.

‘It has to wait’, I said to myself aloud.

‘No, it cannot’, I corrected myself.

‘It has to wait…unless’, I quipped again.

'Unless? Yes, unless…what?!’, I retorted.

‘Unless you decide to borrow the book.’

‘Hah! What an astute idea?! Let me remind you that today’s Sunday and it’s almost midnight.’

‘What I’m saying is, take the book to the dorm, read it in the comfort of a cozy bed and once finished return it to the shelf.’

‘Won’t this be like stealing the book?!’

‘Hah!’

‘Hah! What?’

‘Hah!’

I contemplated the argument for a while and decided to go with my Orwellian self.

‘Yeah, nothing wrong about that! I will read it in the comfort of my bed and return it to the shelf maybe tomorrow or the day after, perhaps. Decided! And ain’t this book a beauty?!’

I scampered down the stairs and precariously halted at the library’s entrance. I attentively scanned the vestibule for the security officer. I found no one guarding the gate. This was my lucky day and only chance to make off with the book. I drew my belly in and tucked the richly bound book into the trousers and underneath my tee-shirt. The book rested against my stomach precariously but snugly.

I hit the campus boulevard with my arms swinging nonchalantly by my side and hips gyrating feebly to the latest Bollywood melody whistled by my puckered lips. At a distance, I discovered a silhouette of a man with a stick, walking agitatedly towards me. My heart skipped a beat. The book protruded visibly from my belly and there was all probability of my getting tripped up by him. I comforted myself and ambled forth to greet Ram Prasad. I knew I had to play it safe and cool.

‘What’s up, Ram? How’s it goin’?’, I enquired.

‘Not OK, Sir’, he lamented, ‘Some kid hurled a stone at the Dean’s office and smashed the window. Dean sahib is furious.’

‘Some bloody outlaw he must be’, I sneered.

‘God knows, Sir. Good night. I’ve to be more vigilant on my beat today.’

‘Good night.’

We merrily parted ways until he turned around and pinged me from behind.

‘Sir, what’s that protruding out from your stomach?’

I stopped short on my tracks and was instantly soaked in perspiration. It was as if some dam had internally burst in my body.

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Just a book…just a book I borrowed from Iyer.’

‘I see’. He looked satisfied. He scanned me again, then checked his wrist-watch and spoke sternly, ‘It’s past midnight, Sir. I better be returning to my beat. I don’t know what these brats are up to. They are definitely a pain in the wrong area.’

‘Yes, you better be going. It’s in the college grapevine that the library is being used by some to smoke pot.’

Ram Prasad stood aghast for a moment as if I had dropped a bomb on him. In a wink, he turned around and dissolved into the darkness.

I let out the longest sigh of relief I ever had and almost let out a joyous shriek. Then I checked my happy temperament and hurried towards my dorm.

It was pitch dark inside. I threw the switch and found my roomie in the exact same position I left him almost eight hours ago – lying prostrate on his bed, dead to the world. I did not care to wake him up this time. I carefully opened the wooden closet and placed my latest keep on the top shelf, just beside the abridged edition of my roomie’s Gita.

I shut the closet, sighed satisfactorily and plopped on the bed.