Stolen with Pride

For as long as I remember, I have this strange craving to constantly steal from my big brother.  I don’t want to steal from anyone else, only from him.  I like going through his stuff when he's not around, stealing something and then hoarding it.  He would discover it missing at some point, obviously.  He would know that I stole it.  Then would start the whole torture and counter-torture ritual between us that would drive mom crazy. 

First he had to catch me.  This meant tearing through the house and the neighbourhood.  I was smaller but much more agile.  Besides I could hide in hard to reach spaces.  Then he had to tear everything apart to reach me.  Sometimes I would deliberately crash something in his path to slow him down so I could get away.  We created much destruction at home and much ruckus in the neighbourhood as we woke up sleepy dogs that joined the chase and so on.

My goal was to evade him long enough to get him really winded and frustrated so he would stop making sense.  Then the aim was to get caught somewhere in mom's vicinity, because she would save me from an overly irate brother.  A bad case was if he caught me right away because then he could really torture me and I would have to give up said stolen loot to be forgiven.  A worst case was if he caught me right away and in dad's vicinity, because dad would NOT save me.  He thought the whole thing was too funny, which ended up encouraging my brother to figure out new and ingenious ways of torture to maximize entertainment value for dad.

I also loved to steal food right off his plate.  Even if the exact same thing was on my plate, the satisfaction of eating something stolen from his plate was far greater.  Certain things that were my favorites, when they were made, mom knew there was going to be a fight at the dinner table.  As soon as we sat down for dinner, she would warn me loudly and sternly

"There is fruit-crème for dessert.  If you want more, ask for it, don't steal from your brother.  Ok?" 

I would nod obediently.  And immediately start plotting strategies to steal.  By the time the dish was actually served, I had my strategy all mapped out.  Most often it involved creating a diversion with the dog while I slurped a few spoonfuls out of his serving.  Occasionally, it involved throwing a tantrum about him getting the bigger serving (after I had quickly eaten more than half of mine).  For some reason, my tantrums had absolutely no effect on our parents.  But they worked like magic on my brother.  He would inevitably sigh in the face of my tantrum and just switch bowls, giving me his bowl which had more and take my half-eaten bowl as his.  Then he would shake his head in disgust and sometimes even whack me one on my head.  But I got his share, and I was happy.  I stopped tantruming, so I guess he was happy too.

There was a very careful thought process that went into effect when I was stealing his stuff.  I never stole anything of his that I knew he valued or that was important to him in the current time frame.  I would wait and watch until the thing actually lost importance for him, then I would steal it.  If he never discovered it missing, then the stolen item would acquire magical properties for me.  It became a symbol of something that I pulled blindly out of the eagle eye of my brother.  I would hoard it with a great deal of pride.

If he discovered it missing, but couldn't torture it out of me; or for some strange reason decided to believe my bluff on it, then the thing became another symbol of pride that even though his eagle eyes caught it, I was able to snatch it like as if I had snatched something straight out of the lion's mouth. 

If I had to sadly give up the stolen item, then it became the ultimate in deprivation.  I would forever eye it soulfully and constantly be on the lookout for a successful re-steal.  But if my brother decided to be kind and let me have the item I was attempting to re-steal, it would immediately lose all value.  And within days of getting it, it would either get lost or broken or something weird would happen to destroy it.  I did not hoard it - it was not a symbol of pride.  It was just charity then.  And there is no value attached to charity received.

As you can tell, there is a serious case of hero-worship on my side for my brother.  He is a very good brother.  It didn't matter what I had done, and how much trouble I had gotten into, I knew I could rely on him to bail me out.  All my little crimes and misdemeanors were shamelessly blurted out to him and he always made things better.  Also he had almost a sixth sense about me - even back then.  It was like he knew when I was going to need him and on days like that, he just kept an eye on me.

Like the time when this older boy who I used to hang-out with decided to steal a scooter from one of the neighbours and off we went for a joyride on the trunk road leading up to Mussourie.  I was thirteen years old at the time, the other boy was around fifteen.  Then he stopped at a lonely spot and came up with the idea of hurling the scooter off the side of the road and sending it crashing down the mountain.  He had visions of explosions like in the movies.  I tried to explain to him that there would be no explosion with a scooter.  Besides, I was uneasy with just destroying something that was valuable to someone.

Anyway, we got into a fight over it.  He left me with a scooter and raced back down on foot with threats to inform everyone that I had stolen the scooter.  So there I was a few kms off Dehradun, on the side of a road with a scooter that I wasn't very comfortable either abandoning or riding down the winding paths.  And with a certain knowledge that if I got it and myself down in one piece, there would be the grand inquisition that would crucify me.  I was carefully considering my options and attempting to strategize my way out of this latest mess, when who should ride up on his phut-phutting moped?  You got it - my hero of a big brother :)

He gave me his moped to ride down since I was comfortable with that, while he rode on the scooter behind me, constantly keeping a watchful eye on me.  On the way down, we even picked up the other kid who was trotting along on foot.  My brother gave him a good talking to and threatened him into submission.  Then the three of us rode back stealthily into town and parked the scooter where we had stolen it from.  No one was the wiser.  I never did hang out with the other kid again.

My brother always told me that I had absolutely zero judgment in picking my friends.  He is usually right.  Majority of the time, I pick people as friends who inevitably are bad for me, let me down and in general make my life miserable.  Why can't I pick people like my brother to be my friends?  I do have some friends like that, but when I look at our history, I realize that these were people who picked me, rather than the other way round.  In fact, our history is proof that I did my level best to shake them off as my friends, and the fact that they are still around is testament to their sticking power and not to any great hand of friendship that I have extended to them.

Although, eventually, even a dimwit like me can tell a person who is good for me, versus one who is not.  And once the realization comes, perceived friendships without the kinship of mutual benefit disappear, and real connections just get stronger.

In case you are wondering, yes, I still steal from my brother :)  Now I wander around his home and announce what I plan to steal.  Every time I do that, he points to his four kids and asks me when I plan to steal one of them :))  I have my eye on his youngest.  One of these days, when his eagle eye is shut and the lion is taking a nap….. Shhhh….