Kleptomania (?)

I’ve been reviewing Psychiatry these past three days and have come to the realization that  it just depresses me. I don’t know what it is about the subject but it happens every time I go through it. Thankfully, I am almost done with it and am not so miserable any more. I was reading through kleptomania which is an impulse control disorder. People with this disorder steal things which are really of no use to them….be it for personal use or for monetary gain. This reminded me of an incident back at college. I was in my fourth year at that time and it was right before our mock exams. My batch of about  twenty five students had gathered in the pathology department’s basement where the museum was. We were all busy looking at specimens….making sure we knew how to identify each one because this was to be the last time we’d get to see them. After this they were to be sealed and kept safe (as if anyone was going to steal them!) till our finals.

There were set days on which each batch was to come and look at the slides and the specimens. I heard a couple of girls complain out loud about people from other batches coming in on “our” day….they did have a point because it was extremely stuffy with just the twenty five of us. Also, it was July and the sweltering heat made people even more intolerant. I wanted to leave as soon as I could because all the noise and the stuffiness was getting to me but there was still quite a few specimens that I needed to look at. It was then that the electricity went out! There was more complaining and groaning . I heard V call out to me. Some one had a torch with them and a group was huddled over the specimens in the dark. It was obviously a lost cause to make way into them and actually get to see something but I went over anyways. Much to my relief, the electricity came back on in about twenty minutes. V and I hurriedly looked over the remaining specimens and were all set to leave when I realized my bag wasn’t where I had left it! I looked around on the other chairs, under the table to no avail. I asked people around me but no one had seen anything because there had been no electricity.

I was flabbergasted. My bag had my cell phone, my check book, my wallet with about 3000 rupees and all my i.d cards, an expensive and much cherished stethoscope and torch light, amongst other things. I looked every where in the museum and even checked the laboratories upstairs.....but didn’t find it! I resigned myself to the thought that someone had stolen it. But I was frustrated because whoever it was, had to be one of my class fellows who were there in the museum at that time. Almost all of them were well known to me and I was good friends with them. V and I decided to leave then and probably report the matter to the head of the department …not that it would have made a difference. We were just about to leave when a girl A came to us. She said she might have a hunch as to who may have stolen my bag. She named a girl T who she claimed had stolen things from her room in the hostel .A however said that T had been dealt with  firmly by the hostel authorites but had begged to keep it all hushed. I was shocked because I had been with T in the same batch through the first two years and got along great with her. Our batches changed when we got to third year. She was one of the few people who were there out of turn on that day. I was confused. Then V suggested that we go and look for her and just ask her if  she has seen my bag. She thought we just may be able to judge if she had taken my bag by her facial expressions. We went upstairs and found her sitting on one of the benches in the corridor. I went up to her told her how I couldn’t find my bag. She asked me what I had in the bag  and said that she even looked for it herself in the labs once she heard about it. She kept a straight face through all this. We really had no evidence on the basis of which we could blame her other than that other girl A’s suspicion. "A" had also told us that "T" had claimed that she was just really upset because of family problems and would never do soemthing like this again A had forgiven her and had thought T had turned a new leaf .

V  took me back to her house. We tried calling on my cell phone but it had been switched off. I was worried because that was the only way by which my parents could reach me. I just sulked the whole day. “A” called me at V’s house and asked if we came up with something or not. When I told her I hadn’t she insisted on how she really thought it was “T”. She had asked a few more girls in the hostel about “ T” and there were two more people who had suspected her when things started disappearing from their rooms but didn’t have any concrete evidence against her. I decided to let it go and got down to calling my parents to let them know about all this. V wasn’t giving up on this though. She had a strong feeling that it was "T" and told me she was going to give her a call. More on this later.