In the formative years of my career, I was a frequent victim of pickpockets and thieves. I can’t quantify the money I have lost to them, but even by a conservative estimate it was quite substantial for sure.

In the early 1960s, the value of the Indian rupee was pretty high compared to today. Losing a Rs100 note meant a lot. I don’t remember if currency notes of Rs500 denomination were there, but surely there were no Rs1,000 notes in circulation at that time.

The value of the rupee can be gauged from the fact that earlier in the 1950s it was not considered safe for a schoolboy to carry a Rs100 note to the market. “Be careful. Somebody could snatch it from you” was how the parents would caution the boy going to purchase books.

I remember how petty shopkeepers looked at a boy carrying that note with awe. By the way, the monthly college fee of a 12th grade student used to be about Rs14 or Rs16 in those days. So, it was understood such a boy must be from a well-to-do family.

Today, on festive occasions in many families even a five- or six-year-old lisping girl dictates her choice of Eidi or Teeka saying, “No, no. Give me that green one [Rs100 note]”. What a fall — of the Indian rupee!

Coming back to my earlier days, like most other people, I also used to carry petty cash and some important papers in a wallet that I would invariably push into the hip pocket of my trousers. For a pretty long time, I also maintained the mistaken belief that it was quite safe there until I repeatedly bought new purses and lost them.

It was entirely my fault and there was no point in reporting the matter to the police because they would say they have so many better things to do. In any case, even in the present dispensation it is not advisable to take the matter to the police for we know it would be a fruitless exercise.

Hip pocket unsafe

Happily, wisdom dawned on me, albeit too late. After my own experiences, I started advising people not to keep any money or important documents like IDs in their wallets or otherwise in their pockets that you can’t see. I told them that the hip pocket was not meant for those items. It belonged to those pinchers. So, better use it for other purposes.

I changed my strategy. I bought a featherweight purse for my shirt’s pocket so that it did not sink. I was happy that now I could keep a constant watch on my purse. But pickpockets seemed to be happier. I had made things easier for them.

The criminals being invariably taller than me had literally an upper hand. Several times, I lost my lightweight purses from the shirt pocket as well. I had failed again.

Friends and well-wishers called me too timid, careless and what not. I could not defend myself adequately.

I had to think of a new strategy, I replaced the purse with old postcards! I would fold one and keep the currency notes in it. No pickpocket could ever imagine that somebody would dodge him with an old postcard. The strategy worked.

For a long time I successfully used the ‘postcard wallet’. But when my office sent me on tours it also became vulnerable. I was again duped mainly during train journeys. Loss of railway ticket and other vital documents compounded my woes.

It may be recalled that I am talking of the early 1960s when there were no cellphones and rail travel was not as advanced as it is today.

Adversities made me wiser. I got the folds at the bottom of a few pants opened a bit to create slots for concealing small pouches of high-denomination currency notes. Nobody could imagine that money could be hidden near the ankle in that manner. Even if somebody came to know of it, he or she would have to stoop low to try to get it. And I felt no self-respecting pickpocket would stoop that low.

Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.