Hello,
It’s 9.30 pm here in the UK and I can barely keep my eyes open. I am on my bed and wondering why the hell is the bedroom so cold tonight. Let me check the windows because sometimes I open them to let some fresh air in and then forget to close them down.
But, no. They are well locked.
Why it is so cold then? I can feel the chill even on the tiny hair of my legs. I go out of the room and from the edge of the staircase shout out to my partner (M) who is having his dinner downstairs, “Can you please switch on the heater after you eat?”.
I come back thinking what could be the cause of the drop in temperature. It’s really strange. I just came from the other room and it was nice and toasty. Could it be because I took off my sweater? Nah, I don’t feel this chilly even without it. I have grown quite acquainted with the cold now. The first few months here were different.
I remember the first day here I went to a bank with M and it was so windy that I got a headache. It was the first week of November. I had to sit down on a public bench with my hands over my ears to stop the cold from entering my head. Same time of the year and now I can go and get some milk from the nearest Off Licence in just a windshield. I can even peep out of the house wearing just a t-shirt to throw the trash. (M smirks in the background with grand hand gestures, “She never throws the trash. Even hypothetically”.)
Is there a crack in the room that we were too busy to notice? I turn my head around and check wall to wall. I stare at the ceilings too, hoping to find an ugly hole. I am not crazy, they were renovating the upstairs flat a few days ago. Plus, with all the sinister things that are happening in the city lately, anything is possible.
There are increasing cases of vandalism, robbery, and attacks. People are getting punched right on their faces in broad daylight. Dogs are being stolen. There’s a shopping street here where every day there’s a break-in. Not a single restaurant has been spared. No amount of security cameras have been successful in identifying a face. In the age of technology where general civilians are flying into space just for leisure, why aren’t there security cameras with great image quality? I saw footage where the thief slid through a hole in the roof! He knew there was a CCTV camera outside that shop, so he managed to get a key to the unused place upstairs and dig a hole. Talk about creativity and dedication! After all this tremendous work, I hope he at least found something worthy.
I know a lot of such cases. When M tells me something boring, I narrate to him criminal cases with all the glossy details. At times I make it dramatic too, where I pretend to get distracted and pause at the interesting bits. Only after repeated requests from his end, which shows how invested he was in the story, do I tell him what happened. When I am in a notorious mood, I reply to his ‘Then what happened?’ with, “I don’t know. I got bored and didn’t read the rest”. When in reality, the ending is boring. They catch the criminal and put him in jail. In India, they find the criminal and let him free and then frame someone else as a criminal. Or better, they mess up the evidence and drag the case for years with such absurd discoveries which in no way could have been related to the case. Does it make sense to drag your house help into a criminal conspiracy just because she wears bright coloured clothes?!
Anyway, I get all this information on the City’s Facebook Police Page. When I first discovered it, I read up every post they had posted in the last 3 years. to be honest, I love the comments section more. People here can mock the police and criticise them for not acting quickly. Crazy right? Back home, we cannot do that. So, I read everything until a glimpse of the sunrise passed through the curtains.
The next day I woke up as a self-claimed expert on the city’s crime scene. Well, what else there was to do? It was during the lockdown and I wanted to show one thing that I did while sitting at home day in and day out for months. So now, I know all the sketchy areas. I know what routes to avoid after dark. What kind of crime happens the most. And which age group is more targeted.
And not just that. I have been personally warned too. Like, right on my face. When we were first looking for a place to rent in this city, I had no idea about the neighborhood. We knew no one who could guide us better. M would be at his new job and I would walk around the city, checking out houses. I was going to every house viewing.
On one such occasion, I was instructed to wait outside a charity shop. Luckily for me, the real estate agent was late and the wonderful owner of the charity shop invited me in. When she came to know why I was there, she told me about a murder that happened on that same street. “There are a lot of nice residential areas in this city and this is not one”, I remember her telling me. “You see that building? A few months ago a murder happened there. Right in front of it”, she emphasized. After the gory details she finished with, “If I were you, I wouldn’t live here”.
I think she read my mind because she told me her charity shop was there because it’s cheap and that she closes it every day before dark and goes home. Next thing I know she was introducing me to someone and asking me to get a second opinion in case I don’t believe her and left the room.
The man she pointed at told me that he has lived in that street for ages and that he feels safe. And that crime happens everywhere in a big city like this.
Of course, I didn’t take that house after that lovely chat. I didn’t like it anyway. It was rubbish. But never have I ever been warned of murder. A few months later when I told this incident to my neighbour with utmost faith, he could only laugh. Now I don’t know what to make of it.
My point here is, someone webbing a dark plot to attack me in my bedroom is completely plausible- I am very valuable. Have you not seen me?
Here,
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khimpidutta 