Scooter’s gone

Ever since I moved into my new apartment, I haven't my scooter. That’s like nine months. The reasons for not using the scooter started with me not feeling the need to have a vehicle. Since I had to always use the suburban railway system to get to any interesting place in Mumbai, my scooter’s use was gone. Then came the financial crunch and the non-affordability of fuel.

Since the building that I’m living in did not have a parking space, I had to keep it parked at the side of the road. Since I didn’t use it, it had grown dirty and dusty. Every day when I stepped out of the building, I would make sure that it’s there. A few times, when some other extraneous force had made it go off balance, I would go and put it back in its correct posture on the centre-stand.

Today, as I left for work, I didn’t see it there. I was scared. But since I needed to report to work, I couldn’t do anything then. I worried about it all day – one reason why I wasn’t bothered with the chatter at the workplace (I had taken my mp3 player along to ensure 100% auditory isolation) – and when I returned home, I took a look around to see if it was not moved to another parking space nearby.

I couldn’t find it. It was gone. I talked to the security guards at the building. First they denied having seen someone take it. Later, they confessed that the municipality people had come and asked if they knew whose scooter it was. Apparently nobody knew and they had towed it away.

I’m wondering what to do. I’d need to go over to the police chowky and then claim my vehicle. I think I won’t have a problem doing that. But how on earth do I bring it back home? It’s not in a working condition and to make it run smoothly, I will have to invest a lot of money. I can’t do that. I don’t know what to do.