Thief returns TV stolen from Maharashtra’s iconic poet Surve’s home

Surve, renowned for his poems about the struggles of the proletariat, died in 2010 and his daughter and son-in-law now live in his home

Had he been alive he may well have written a poem on the man who broke into his house. Earlier this month, an as-yet unidentified thief broke into the house of one of Maharashtra’s great poets, Narayan Surve, and stole an LED television, a five-litre can of cooking oil, some groceries, a box of cooking masalas, a brass lamp, a table fan and some taps and faucets from the bathrooms.

Renowned Marathi poet, Narayan Surve. (HT ARCHIVES )

Surve, renowned for his poems about the struggles of the proletariat, died in 2010 and his daughter and son-in-law now live in his home in a middle-class area of Navi Mumbai. According to the police, the thief surveyed the house when Surve’s daughter Sujata and her husband Ganesh Ghare were visiting their son at Virar, and broke in and stole the aforementioned items. When the Ghares returned on July 14, they found the flat ransacked but tacked on the TV was a note written in Marathi which read: “I did not know that this was the home of Narayan Surve, else I would have never stolen from here. Forgive me! I am returning some of the things that I have stolen including the television. Sorry.”

Surve’s daughter told HT that the thief appeared to have entered their ground floor home through the bathroom window and that they were alerted to the theft by their neighbour who called them and said that the glass window was shattered and the grille was bent. “We have registered an FIR about some of the missing things but in the main the thief took away salt, rice, masalas and a few kilos of various dals from the kitchen, none of which we have listed in the FIR.” In his note the thief has also promised to return the rest of the stuff back.

She added that the thief had possibly seen Surve’s photos and trophies, including the Padma Shri scroll, that were displayed in the living room and was hit by remorse. Years after his death, Surve remains a remarkable cultural institution in Maharashtra. He was abandoned as an infant on a footpath in Mumbai and picked up by a textile mill worker. But while still a child, he was abandoned for a second time and virtually brought himself up doing odd jobs on the city’s streets. The auto-didact grew up to become a peon in a municipal school before going on to become a teacher. He is well-known for his 1966 collection “Majhe Vidyapeeth” (My University), which remains a seminal collection about the struggles and resilience of the labour class. He was given the Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1973 for his writings on labour rights and social justice.

Struck by the note left by the thief, Surve’s son-in-law Ganesh Ghare told HT that the incident reflects on the impact of Surve’s literature. “Lately, Narayan Surve’s poetry had begun fading from public memory. This incident may get people back to reading him.”

In one of his famous poems, By Way of Introduction, Surve writes: “I’m run ragged, in and out/My daily bread is my daily doubt/I am a worker, a flashing sword/Set to slash through the literary horde/Don’t you quiver, don’t go “Tut tut”/My sins will be venial Mr Saraswat.”

“It seems the thief had read Narayan Surve’s poems and which prompted him to return our TV set,” said Ghare who informed the local police about the theft on Monday. A case has been registered against the unknown intruder under Sections 305, 331(3) and 331(4) of the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita.

Assistant police inspector Shivaji Dhavale of the Neral police station said they have started scanning the CCTV footage for the intruder and a forensic team has visited the crime scene to collect finger-prints, including from the TV set that was returned.