The family that steals together stays together | Short stories from life

I used to live in a tiny village called Anadhikritapuram or APuram as we called it. While most of the families that lived there had been its inhabitants for generations, some had moved in recently. One of them was the Rao?s. In our small village we all had the occasional disputes and disagreements but the one point on which everyone agreed, was that contact with the Rao family was to be avoided or limited at best.
From a safe distance, the Rao?s looked like every other regular family that lived in our village. A husband, a wife and the government stipulated two children. In his late fifties, with pot belly and a bald head, Rao had settled in APuram after retiring from his government job.

According to the Hindu scriptures, good karma from your past births ensured an easy life in the present. I guess, it was this same theory that got people government jobs.
While in service, Rao like most government officials went to office late and returned early. Also while in office, as a rule he did not do any work unless a little extra money was passed on to him ?under the table?. Bureaucratic rules ensured that for all this hard work, he got regular promotions and increments. Yes Sir, you really needed to accumulate a lot of good karma to get into such a privileged society.

It is said the Rao had cried at his retirement party. His last transfer had been to APuram,

the green fertile land and its gentle, friendly people had attracted him and he decided to settle down there, post retirement.

To get to know the villagers better, he along with his family members started visiting homes in their neighborhood. Soon these visits came to be feared by the villagers when they noticed that the Rao family had some weird habits. It was during this time, that I had landed my first job which eventually would take me away from APuram, so I never got a chance to figure out why everyone avoided the Rao?s.

One day years later, now well into my thirties and settled in Mumbai, I got a call from Rao. His son was trying for an admission to a college in Mumbai, and they needed to attend some interviews here. For two days father and son needed a place to stay. Eager to help someone from my village, I agreed immediately and offered to receive them at the railway station.
I took a day off from work and reached the station early. Rao?s son looked like a younger version of his father only a bit taller.

Father and son, jumped off the train and recognized me immediately. They even passed on all the luggage to me and walked down towards the waiting taxi, while I struggled behind with their bags.

At home, my wife and son were at their polite best, trying to set the visitors at ease. Somehow it seemed father and son was more interested in sizing up my house and checking out its facilities, than in getting to know us better. He sat down and dialed long distance, from our phone. Those days long distance calls were costly, but it did not seem to matter to Rao at all. He had a long call with his wife, in which he discussed about the train journey, the climate in Mumbai, the huge crowds, the quality of the food on the train. He even seemed to be interested in getting all the details of their cat back in the village.
Seeing the look on my face my wife reminded me to be nice. Later at lunch, while polishing off every grain of rice on the plates, they up kept a constant chatter complaining about the food, cooking oil, relative small size of the rooms of Mumbai homes. Considering the fact that we lived in a reasonably well off area of the city, and the cost of the flat alone was more than that of the half the village where Rao lived, I chose to ignore his comments. Later that night Rao told me that they needed a room to themselves as otherwise it was difficult for him to sleep. We gave them the main bedroom, while my wife shared my son?s room and I got to sleep on the couch in the TV room.

Next day they wanted me to accompany them on the way for the college interviews. As a rule I rarely take holidays at work, now this was the second day in a row for me. That whole day where ever a payment was to be made, father and son would look the other way. Rao said that as he was traveling he did not carry much cash and would return it as soon as he reached home, which I thought was a reasonable explanation, though not fully justified.
Their train was late in the evening the same day and they said they needed some reading material, for the journey. During my years working in the remote corners of the country, I had collected a sizable number of novels, music tapes, CD and magazines. Father and son pounced upon this collection. While the son held out a bag the father picked up volume after volume and popped it into the bag. I tried to reason that no one could read so many books in a train journey of hardly two days, to which they replied that they would continue their reading back home.
?Don?t worry we will send it to you once we reach APuram,? Rao clarified.

?Daddy, look. I don?t think uncle needs this,? Rao?s son kept saying and one by one my mobile headphones, son?s remote controlled car batteries, a folding umbrella, all seemed to disappeared into the bag.

While dropping them at the railway station, I noticed that they had an extra bag in their luggage. To add insult to injury they made me carry it as well.

?Let?s have some light refreshments before getting on the train,? Rao said. He had just stuffed himself before leaving our home, but the one hour car ride seemed to have worked up his appetite.

?This time let?s go to a slightly better restaurant,? he grinned.

?You have been taking us to cheap hotels, haven?t you?? he asked.

It took some effort on my part not to punch him on his nose.
Later that night at home, we took stock of the losses. Ten novels, eight or nine CD?s, a couple of my shirts and even an old toothbrush, was gone. The toothbrush I used to clean the windows, so I didn?t care but the novels and CD part hurt. I waited for a couple of weeks and then called up Rao and asked him when he was planning to return them.

?What novels, we never took any books from your place,? Rao was indignant.

?We never borrow books from anyone. I have a huge collection of my own,? he continued.
This was totally unexpected, so I called up my relatives in APuram and explained the whole story. I wanted someone to go to his house and get my books back. Instead of a sympathetic hearing, all that I heard was laughter from the other side of the line.

Apparently this was the reason why everyone avoided them in the village. The Rao?s as a family had this nasty habit of picking up things from homes they visited and later never returning them. I was told I could forget about my books, for by now he would have signed his name on the cover, added a date and arranged it in his book shelf. After a lifetime of working in the government, Rao thought he owned the world. Their house was full of stuff picked up from each of the houses they visited. Initially some of the villagers had argued with them and asked them to return their stuff, but the Rao?s never acknowledged that they had taken it in the first place. Soon people started avoiding them and kept their distance.
Thankfully Rao?s son didn?t clear the interview to the local college later I heard they had sold their house and moved out of our village. Maybe there were no more houses to visit and they had moved in search of greener pastures.

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Hi, I am Manoj, the posts on this blog are mostly images from my past, which I present in the form of stories. Since most of the heroes, heroines and unfortunately almost all of the villains from these posts are alive and living in some part of this world, the names and locations have been altered slightly. Sincerely hoping that none of my characters would ever read this blog, and come after me with sharp objects,I present short stories from Life. Read on and be a part of my world :) While not blogging, work in a MNC based out of Mumbai, India. You may also contact me through manojofficial@gmail.com

Source: http://shortstoriesfromlife.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/the-family-that-steals-together-stays-together/

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