Finally Attacked

In the end it had to happen to me. I was after all vociferous that these weren’t racial attacks. Mine wasn’t either, but being an Indian I am expected to be weak. I just proved that right.

Firstly, had I known that my mobile could be recharged over the internet I wouldn’t have gone out to the city. When I realized that I had to recharge it by tonight, or my money won’t be carried over, I went out alone. In the hurry I looked up the internet Google maps for Optus shop locations, took a pic and took the camera along if I required directions. I got the recharge and I bought a new camera pouch, pretty happy to have bargained the price to $10 from $30. If God exists, She might have smiled from above.

Got onto a 59 no tram. I noticed them right when they boarded at QV. They simply looked like hooligans. They were short men but muscular. Looked like Mexicans. High cheek bones and skin colour browner than me. I was sitting alone. Another wrong step in the series of wrong steps that I took over the course of events. And so they chose me as the target. They wanted to make sure that I was meek enough. They asked me my name. Had I said, “How the f*** does it matter to you, asshole?” the story could have been different, but I was unprepared. They marked me. The next stoppage was mine. I got up to get down. As I got down I found them getting down as well. I was thinking of reboarding the tram, when I saw one of them run to the other direction. I thought I was making too much of my suspicions. The North Melbourne Serviced Apartments’ entrance is just 50 metres from the tram stop. When I was about 10 metres from it, fishing my pockets for the key, someone called from behind. By this time the hooligans were out of my mind. I waited. When he came up and asked me, if I wanted an Ipod, I smelt trouble straight away. I looked around but at this moment there was no one. They asked me if I could give them some money. I said I didn’t have any. The next moment “Wham!!” I got one straight and square on my face from the other guy, who was hiding till now. I don’t remember much as I fell flat. I have never been hit so hard in life. I tried to get up, but my head was too badly hit for me to be successful at first attempt. I just wished that they didn’t hit me further. By then they had fled. I fished my pockets, saw my wallet and mobile missing. Later on I found out that my camera was taken away as well. It’s ironic that I had gone out to buy stuff for my mobile and camera only. Anyway, my specs were knocked out by impact. And I am half blind without them.

I went upstairs somehow, did the necessary,… card blocking, calling Gail to call the police. Jai searched for my mobile and specs. Got the specs. I washed my wounds and applied ice on my head. The police called me to the station.
Gail gave us 50 bucks to go by taxi. First time in a police station, I found that it was quite similar to what I heard about them back in India. Large tummied people. Bringing food to the police station, merrying around. They took a long statement, in which details such as whether I was facing forward or backward in the tram was noted. But the policewoman was pretty frank about the fact, that there wasn’t any hope getting back what I had lost. I even asked if my phone can be tracked down by calling. She said that’s too costly for such cases. She asked me what would be the nationality of the people. In that respect, it was news for her that Spain is in Europe. Anyway, my insurance company also said that they didn’t cover electronic items. So my loss was pretty huge, but thank God, it’s not worse.

In the whole course, everything linked to the other. It would not have happened if I knew that I could recharge over the net, if I had gone out slightly early, if I hadn’t stopped by a camera shop for the pouch, if I had somehow caught the next or earlier tram, if I didn’t sit alone in the tram, if I showed some temper at those guys the first time, if I didn’t get off at my stop and rather got off at some other more populated stop, if I had not turned around and waited or even if I had given my wallet the first time he asked for money. But as Morpheus said “what happened, happened and could not have happened any other way.”

The differences are now further reduced.