My Childhood Journey.

2. The night the thieves broke in

Before I begin this story  I need to say a few lines about my father. He is a very simple person who is overly  concerned with the happenings of the world around him. When it comes to his kids, I can say that he was over protective about them. When our father accompanies us to any place, he was always watching out for us. We will be walking down the road, suddenly he would shout , "look out!, there is a lorry approaching ",but when we turn back and see, the lorry would be nearly half a kilometre down the road and when asked my father will tell, anyway it is going to come near us in a minute or two.So that's one simple example .

This incident happened during one night, when my hypervigilant father did something,that really shook all of us .

It was an usual night and all of us, my elder sister, my elder brother, myself together with my mother and father were fast asleep.

We shared the same wall with our neighbours house which was none other than my grandfather's. So any noise from the other side of the wall can be heard in our bedroom. On that particular night my grandfather was not at home. He had gone to a temple tour together with my aunt, and so my father was mindful in taking care of their house too.

 It was after midnight, around 12:30, when we sensed some strange movement taking place on the other side of our bedroom wall.

 My father was the first to respond by saying, "I think I hear someone moving around,"  to which my mother replied, "it must be the rats ,go to sleep," but my father was not convinced.

 He started to pace up and down the room, each time pausing and listening closely against the wall. Since we all started complaining about his activities, my father left to the sit out room, which is next to our bedroom and resumed his detective work. After quite sometime, the rest of us went to sleep. Suddenly we were awaken by a mild explosive sound . It was the breaking of our tubelight in the sit-out room . All of us got up with a jolt, thinking that we were being attacked by the thieves from the other side.

When we were about to react my father came rushing towards the bedroom saying , "Nobody's out there, you can all go back to sleep".

My mother questioned him,"Then, how did the tubelight break?".

My father gave a brief explanation saying that he had thrown a dried coconut shell to the other side of the wall hoping to scare the thieves, but since his throw was not a good one, it had  backfired halfway and eventually broke the tubelight. I found this very hilarious and started laughing but my mother got very upset. Now she was fully awake and started to scold my father, in that fit of rage. 

But  a few minutes after the breaking of the tubelight, everything happening on the other side of the wall, whatever it was,stopped instantly.We all went to sleep peacefully except for my father.

The next day my grandfather came back from the trip. We narrated to him the happenings of the previous night ,"oh! That must have been the cat ," he said.

"You see, in my hurry, I had forgotten to let it out".

My grandfather had locked the house leaving the cat inside, so the bored cat was trying to escape, causing all the chaotic noise . Till today whenever I recollect that event, it really amuses me a lot.  Lets move on to know more about my father.

My father used to be so doubtful about the world we live in. Whenever I went with my father to purchase any grocery items he used to give a suspicious stare, at the shopkeeper as he is packing our things.

My father would look as though the shopkeeper is plotting to loot my father and  going on to become the richest person with that money. I used to say, "please try to trust people, " for which my father would reply I completely trust him but he should not think I am a gullible person, that's why I am checking .

Once my mother was waiting for her things to be carried from the market  place but my father had completely forgotten about it as he was busy helping some other person cross the road and reach his place. Most of the time he will be engrossed in the needs of other people that we have keep searching for his whereabouts. In  today's world were people are becoming so lazy to take care of their own needs  and expect others to do it for them, my father was an exceptionally good person who took time to help others.

At times while we are  doing our shopping , we could hear our father  busily bargaining with the trader  to reduce the amount of merchandise. Just don't misinterpret the situation, my father will leave  our side and will be busy bargaining for some other family.That much of interest he had in social work.

Another thief story happened but, this time it was my mother who created quite a situation.It was a rainy night and so sounds of loud thunder together with the splashing of rainwater against our roof was heard through out the night.

 My mother got up, went outside and started to glance over the roof . Minutes later she came inside with a  frightened expression saying," four men have broke open the roof and trying to get inside the house" . My father on hearing this got on his feet and rushed outside only to find a dog wandering helplessly over our roof.It must have lost its way probably due to the heavy rain and accidentally landed there. Now it was struggling to climb down and was pushing down the roof tiles in this process.

I asked my mother how did  a four legged dog look like four men to her and as usual she silenced me with her angry stare.