Mobile Crime in Bangalore City is so rampant! Every one out of five people in this city - including myself – by and large, under mysterious circumstances, have lost a cell phone! One really wonders if all these cases come about, due to opportunistic kleptomaniacs or because of people who’re just lazy enough not to find its rightful owner even if they wanted to!
To mention one such occasion, I was going back home from college on my bike, when I almost lost my phone and by sheer dumb luck, I managed to get it back! Being an avid person at text messaging, I have the habit of texting even at the traffic signal sometimes, when the wait is too long. This was one of the times when I took out my cell phone to text and I failed to notice the signals change! Hurriedly stuffing it back into my pocket I continued my journey when at one point my phone fell off my pocket onto the busy road. Realizing this only after going a few yards ahead, I parked my bike immediately and ran back to retrieve it from where it had fallen. Just when I dolefully turned around concluding that I’ve lost yet another cell phone, a stranger who had been watching my sequence of actions came to me telling, that a truck driver picked up my cell phone and drove off feeling very smug about his catch!
Not giving up my hopes on getting back my cell phone, I decided to chase this truck and try getting back my phone! This stranger even offered to come with me and help me identify the truck which had by now, gone a few blocks ahead from where I was standing. We both just hopped onto my bike, without giving time for second thoughts and waded through the intense traffic managing to catch up with the truck after nearly a kilometer of what I call ‘rash driving’!! On signaling to the truck driver to return my cell phone while still in motion, he simply nodded and handed it over to my pillion, along with its SIM card, which he had already removed from my cell phone!
Feeling really pleased with myself about my successful mission, and exceedingly grateful to this stranger, I offered to drop him at his destination which was out of my way, and then went back home triumphantly!!
In retrospect, I still wonder if the truck driver picked up my cell phone, merely because he found it lying in his way unclaimed, or he had no intentions to return it and that’s why he sped off without making any efforts to find me! Similarly, the hundreds of people who lose their cell phones everyday in our city, makes it seem as if some of these cases can be termed LOST rather than STOLEN! And these lost cases can be prevented only if the finder just made a little extra effort to find its owner rather than being lazy! The cell phone crime in Bangalore is not just contributed by the habitual thieves but also by people who are just too lazy to be honest!
To mention one such occasion, I was going back home from college on my bike, when I almost lost my phone and by sheer dumb luck, I managed to get it back! Being an avid person at text messaging, I have the habit of texting even at the traffic signal sometimes, when the wait is too long. This was one of the times when I took out my cell phone to text and I failed to notice the signals change! Hurriedly stuffing it back into my pocket I continued my journey when at one point my phone fell off my pocket onto the busy road. Realizing this only after going a few yards ahead, I parked my bike immediately and ran back to retrieve it from where it had fallen. Just when I dolefully turned around concluding that I’ve lost yet another cell phone, a stranger who had been watching my sequence of actions came to me telling, that a truck driver picked up my cell phone and drove off feeling very smug about his catch!
Not giving up my hopes on getting back my cell phone, I decided to chase this truck and try getting back my phone! This stranger even offered to come with me and help me identify the truck which had by now, gone a few blocks ahead from where I was standing. We both just hopped onto my bike, without giving time for second thoughts and waded through the intense traffic managing to catch up with the truck after nearly a kilometer of what I call ‘rash driving’!! On signaling to the truck driver to return my cell phone while still in motion, he simply nodded and handed it over to my pillion, along with its SIM card, which he had already removed from my cell phone!
Feeling really pleased with myself about my successful mission, and exceedingly grateful to this stranger, I offered to drop him at his destination which was out of my way, and then went back home triumphantly!!
In retrospect, I still wonder if the truck driver picked up my cell phone, merely because he found it lying in his way unclaimed, or he had no intentions to return it and that’s why he sped off without making any efforts to find me! Similarly, the hundreds of people who lose their cell phones everyday in our city, makes it seem as if some of these cases can be termed LOST rather than STOLEN! And these lost cases can be prevented only if the finder just made a little extra effort to find its owner rather than being lazy! The cell phone crime in Bangalore is not just contributed by the habitual thieves but also by people who are just too lazy to be honest!
