For the last couple of weeks, I had been witnessing a strange development in our street. For some unknown reasons the radio antennas of all cars parked in our neighbourhood were disappearing mysteriously at night and no one had a clue!
I was absolutely perplexed because stealing of decals and side view mirrors is a common problem in a city like Delhi and nowadays it’s totally accepted. I mean no one files an FIR if a decal from his car;s bonnet disappears.
But stealing plastic antennas made no sense. Especially when in all the cases the antennas were technically not stolen in one piece because their base bolted to the roof never came off.
So, I thought this stupid thief is stealing broken antennas and that too ever week!
But still I was fine with it until one night antennas of both my cars vanished. Couple of days later, I got them replaced still trying desperately to figure out the idiot behind the act. Meanwhile, three days later he struck again and both of the antennas were again missing.
And this time round while one of the antennas was broken in two, the other was completely disfigured.
It was like the antenna was given in the hands of Manmohan Singh and then he was continuously told by Digvijay Singh that Rahul Baba would make a better Prime Minister that he could ever be.
I would have pacified myself by blaming a jealous neighbor but the fact that it was uniform across the entire neighbourhood, refrained me from thinking so.
Desperate to find out the culprit, I set up camp on my home’s terrace (from here I can see both my cars) the whole night on a weekend and deiced to catch the miscreant ‘red handed.’
It was a dark, moonless night and on top of it the streetlight was broken too. The pitch dark conditions made it difficult to watch what was happening in the street below. So, I concentrated hard and kept vigil.
Meanwhile, pints of chilled Kingfisher, chicken tikkas and vintage Bollywood songs playing on my laptop were keeping me company.
Suddenly, at around 1 a.m. I saw someone walking towards my cars. Dressed in black he camouflaged himself in the dark environment and it was a challenging task to keep a track of his movements.
Upon reaching the front of the car he jumped on the bonnet, looked around and with another leap stood proudly on the rooftop of the vehicle. Then he went towards the antenna turned a circle and settled down with his tongue wagging out.
IT WAS A STREETDOG! Unable to bear the July heat he had been for the last couple of weeks dozing off on the rooftop of cars as the cool metallic surface provided much needed relief to him.
He slowly started licking the antenna then gnawed and bit it and finally pulled it out of its base before breaking it into two. Then he kept on playing with for a few minutes and finally dozed off.
Meanwhile, I had finished my last pint of beer and decided to hit the sack. As I gathered my stuff I could not help but laugh at myself while thinking about the amount of money that two new antennas would set me back by.
