so we were robbed yesterday.....

birds

Happy to hear you and family are save. I can imagine this is especially frightening with a small baby around.

I do not know how long you are planning to stay in India but consider taking a dog as security:

- many Indians are scared of dogs
- dogs make a lot of noise when people enter the property
- dogs are uncorruptable
- do not talk to outsiders
- are super reliable.

If you stay just for a few years, consider an older dog, one that good with small childeren, from the local animal rescue. There is good one in Defence Colony Flyover called Friendicous (not sure about the spelling).

Take care!

gautam

Good to know everyone is safe.

Peace

__________________

"Your thoughts could be your prison"

My pics on flickr

Kerela backwaters - by beach

Alohaguy

Sorry to hear of burglary at your home BB.
Glad to see you are taking it in stride. Keeping a dog is a good idea in addition to other security precautions. Take care.

crvlvr

As some of pointed out, there is usually an inside connection when these burgalaries happen. Robbers don't waste their time unless they know that they will get something of value. Make sure you don't leave anything of value when any outsider is visiting your home. Domestic help are usually the culprits.

brownboy66

ricco - thanks for the advice. Yes, we are putting down to experience. The kids are completely unaffected which is the main thing. If they are happy, then so are their parents

Hi Birds - what a great idea! I think, however, it would be too hard to leave a member of our family behind once we eventually go home (the children especially would find it difficult to go through that again). When we came here our family dog went to our neighbours, which was very hard for the children. It was only made easy by the fact our neighbours house is something akin to a doggy paradise (she now has her own chair on the porch to sit in, her own bed in a cane basket, lots of fresh meat, etc....you get the picture).

Gautam - thanks. Could have done with a masked crusader around about 2am on Tuesday morning

Aloha guy - thank you for the kind wishes. Not really much else you can do in these situation except move on I guess. As I've said before - it turned out to be a relatively minor thing afterall - and there are others far worse off.

crvlvr - thanks for the advice. Definitely perpetrated by someone with knowledge of our back courtyard (they came prepared). I'm still inclined towards the workmen who have now all left the area. I have to chuckle though, because as Shashank mentioned previously - they clearly didn't know what they were stealing (an old laptop with a dead battery, old camera, etc) - while leaving behind much more valuable stuff. Shame about the whisky though....

vargoje3

While i was living in India with a guest family i saw a local from the nearby village limping very badly with both legs. I asked my host what happend to the man seeing as he knew mostly everyone from the local village. He calmly replied that he had broken both the man's legs with an iron rod after he tried to break into his house through his 2 month old daughters bedroom. I was shocked to hear this but he never had any other problems with the people that lived around his house, which is located right outside of Pondy in the countryside.

vistet

I'm glad to hear that none of your family members (esp. the wee one ) was directly confronted.

Another thought : as you mention yourself , even a decent harddrive is attractive - which highlights that you can't backup too much : put all your photos on DVD's for example.

__________________
high road to ..

Amyth

We had a similar break-in into our house in Hyderabad a couple of years back. One a.m., dark humid night, whilst my friend and I were gossiping in the hall, the miscreant entered from our bathroom ventilator, which was under repair then. He swiftly ransacked our refrigerator in the dining area, which is behind where we were sitting - cleaned up a BIG pack of Danish cheese, and made a futile attempt to drink the home made fruit juice concentrate, which was stored in an old whiskey bottle... I am sure now he must have given up on anything which faintly resembles that whiskey bottle Before barging into critical areas...wonder why he ran out where he came in from. Later he tried to whisk away with the bicycle parked in the courtyard, and much like an unfortunate robbery shown in movies he too dropped the booty with a clunk sound. Finally the oblivious women in the house stopped gossiping and this is what happened next ...a seemingly 1000km/hr Charlie’s Angels chase at midnight ...but before the nightie clad CA could nab him, he dropped the bike and vanished into thick darkness...But he definitely was inebriated!! Wonder the whiskey bottle had any effect ...

Brownboy66, two years have elapsed and now I could muster up some courage to be frivolous about the incident, but in retrospect it gave me sleepless nights for long then. Glad that you guys are safe! So what, if he whisked with the Whiskey...Pray he doesn't get addicted ...that would be risky!!

__________________
Smile -- it makes people wonder what you're up to

brownboy66

what a great story! It should be a movie (now that I come to think of it - I'm sure I have seen that scene in a movie somewhere....)

Yeah...the thought of some stranger wondering around you place is not nice. Glad to hear you can have a good laugh about it now. I'm pretty happy with some of the immediate steps we've taken to deal with security - and by next week we should have an idea how to deal with a few other areas of concern around the place. A timely wake up call in some ways, and a reminder not to be too complacent.

I am not/ was never worried about the people safety side of things as my family has been involved in law enforcement/ foster parenting side of things back home for decades so we've had our fair share of dealings with people from the other side of the law (speaking of family - haven't even told the folks back home - will bring it up in conversation sometime but just goes to show it doesn't even rate a phone call home). As I've said previously - if its theft then really all someone wants to do is get the loot and then get out. On the property side of things - really can't explain how unconcerned I am about property, possessions, things, etc. Even when our car was stolen many years ago back home - the thing that really annoyed me was the lost baby seat inside - not the car! I have couple of things of sentimental value - but everything else is a thing. My motto is that if it doesn't live or breath, it probably doesn't matter and you can do without it.

I should also point out at this stage that older Ducati motorcycles with carburettors do in fact breath....

brownboy66

vargoje - wow! Not sure I'm up to that level of retribution! I imagine is would be quite effective - but I'd probably just call the police.

vistet - hmmm...good point. Probably not a bad idea to make backups of my backups! Might have to investigate off site storage - maybe use one of the free web photosites that allows you to store photos online. Thanks

indah

when my in laws were travelling through Italy someone broke into the house they were staying at. However, they stole the back up disks and left the digital camera!

vistet

Another partial answer to backup strategy : for Macs there is a program ( Martian Lifeboat ) that automatically backups folders of your choice every time you plug in a specific drive - which for example can be the thumbdrive on your keyring (latest word is at least 8 gigs , I believe) . There is probably some similar program for PC's .

Prashant.M

In Bangalore, backyards, which are mostly small and used as utility areas are completely fenced off with iron bars; both roof and sides.

__________________
Happiness is just a thought away

Nick-H

(Quick post. Traveling. No time to dally)

Sorry to hear about your experience

__________________
.


Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

shashank.aggarwal

Traveling !! where ??

__________________
Travelogue - Around India
Random Reviews