Loyalty of the lock

KR Bharti

A PROFESSOR-cum-writer couple of Delhi is our friend. They have a house at Strawberry Hill in Shimla which they use as their summer retreat. A recent visit to their place turned out to be an experience of a kind. 

We barged in their house around 6 pm. Over high tea, we got engaged in a literary discussion and lost sense of time. I could sense it only when my wife elbowed me to make a move. My eyes travelled to the clock. It was 10 pm. 

They came to see us off till the parking yard, which, shockingly, had turned into a chaos of vehicles with haphazard parking. Only one driver had displayed his contact number on his vehicle. We rang him up. He turned up but expressed his inability to do anything unless the cars behind his were removed. 

The chowkidar of the parking yard appeared from nowhere and we sought his help. He only discomforted us, saying he had neither the keys of the vehicles nor the contact number of drivers. 

We lost an hour in this rigmarole with no solution in sight. So, leaving our car there, we trekked to Chhota Shimla to catch some conveyance. Local buses had ceased to ply at that time, and we had to hire a taxi. 

As we neared our home, my wife began to look for the house keys. “Oh, the keys are in the car!” she said dejectedly. We were tired and going back to collect the keys seemed taxing. We decided to break open the lock. However, we requested the taxi  driver to wait for a while, lest we have to hire his services again. 

I looked for a suitable stone. We took turns to hit our Godrej lock, gently at first, so we didn’t damage it; and also so we did not make much noise. But the lock refused to oblige. We then began to hit it hard. It screeched, but did not soften its grip.  

Having failed in our attempts, we sought help from the taxi-wala  (earlier we were hesitant to involve a stranger in the lock-breaking exercise). He tugged at the lock with an iron rod. Although bruised, the lock did not yield.  

All this while, we were scared that neighbours would haul us up for breaking into our own house. But our fears were belied. No one took notice of it. We thought they were asleep, but the lights in their homes suggested otherwise. No one bothered to know what was transpiring next door. 

We were constrained to go back to get the keys. But now the lock would not open even with the keys. It seemed annoyed with us for the ill treatment meted out to it. 

Our patience gave way. We prayed both the lock and the Lord to steer us away from this predicament. Miraculously, the keys clicked and we were inside our house, at long last. Never before, had we such a great feeling on entering our home. We saluted our lock for its loyalty despite our hostility.