Last night a gardener in the neighbourhood was held up at gunpoint outside our house and relieved of whatever he carried.
There is a classic car parked in the driveway, belonging to an uncle in the US who dreams of taking it with him, has already spent millions of rupees on it, and will need to spend millions more to ship it over. The car has been parked here for a year or more. A few months ago, he sent someone to arrange for shipping – the man arrived, the covers were removed, and he asked for the key so he could drive it into the shipping container and got a blank look as the car hasn’t been able to start in decades. It also weighs as much as a tank, being from a time before aluminium, plastic, etc. My father bought a car battery in the hope that a new battery would help it to start, but it made no difference. The covers were replaced and the man went away.
This afternoon, someone had to drive to Islamabad. She had the car parked outside the gate, where it was a bit shadier, then when she went to leave, discovered that the battery had been stolen. I remembered the other car, its battery was brought over and fit, and so she left.
But now I’m a little bit on edge, worried there might be a burglary tonight. I’ll hide my computer as that is probably the most important thing (though, thanks to the various backups etc I’ve now got in place it would not be a disaster, but definitely a huge inconvenience).
A shame our neighbour was arrested, all the police presence undoubtedly kept all this nonsense at bay.
There was a burglary at the other house in our compound about a decade ago, when vast amounts of jewellery brought out from the bank locker was taken. There’s nothing valuable in this house other than an obscenely large television, but still it would not be pleasant to be robbed and perhaps beaten, and my father would be very upset.
The classic car, meanwhile, is not going anywhere. It would be a relief if the burglars made off with it, sans battery, as it is taking up a good bit of room and it’s a beast to move.