Some 8 to 9 weeks ago, I was travelling to a shop located on Lahore's Husain Chowk with my aunt and uncle. My aunt parked the car on the other side of the road due to traffic and we stood there waiting for the traffic mess to attenuate before we began walking towards the other side. Amidst the traffic mess afore mentioned, a bike rider came swooshing whom we regarded as another partaker of the traffic constituted on that road, but lo and behold! As he went swiftly, my aunt yelled, “He’s taken my purse!” Earlier we had felt secure due to the presence of Dolphin Force just on the main road leading to this road. Now, not so. Some people began to gather and we immediately called the Dolphin Force on their number taking their heavy bikes as a measure of their efficiency and swift delivery (a comical notion we would be disabused of subsequently).

Some ten minutes later, the Dolphin Force arrived. We thought that as soon as they came, at least one of them would be sent to chase the bike rider on the road he took. His number plate was also noted, and it was generally expected that something substantial would be done and the loss would be amended, if not reduced. But to our surprise, the officers calmly asked the details, noted the details and said in a parrot-like monotone: 'Don’t you worry, ‘something’ would be done'. My aunt’s driving license, CNIC, ATMs, credit cards etc. all were in her purse along with her phone and money. And here the officer was telling us not to worry because something would be done.

Just then, a woman came towards us, asked about the incident and said that two days back, on the same road, her purse was snatched by a similar lone bike rider which had two purses and 50,000 cash inside. And the Dolphin Force had also assured her of swift action but nothing had come to pass. While she was narrating this, the police also came and the investigation went on in similar parrot-like fashion while standing beside the road. We wanted our utmost not to have anything to do with police stations or FIRs because of Pakistan’s particular ways, but unfortunately the CNIC was involved. We later went to the nearby police station and reported the incident. The noting officer wrote of the dacoity as “robbery” (why police officers do this particular thing is another long story of inefficiency and failure). And so we came home.

Days went by, and nothing was recovered. The Dolphin Force repeated called on my uncle’s cell not to make us aware of their progress, but only to ask this one question: Did we reach quickly? Did we reach within 10 minutes? Are we faster than Domino’s Pizza? Etc.

And so some weeks passed. Until recently. Some days back, me and a friend were eating at a restaurant on M.M. Alam Road. When we were finished and still had time before our parents picked us up, we decided to visit a nearby shop as my friend needed a cardigan for her upcoming Swat trip. As a safety measure, I hung my bag on my shoulder and put my phone inside before leaving the restaurant. As we stepped out of the restaurant, I cautioned my friend: Beware, there are purse-snatchers in this area.

We had to cross a small side road to get to our shop. As that road had no incoming traffic, we felt secure. We had crossed that road and were about to enter the shop, when a bike rider swiftly passed behind me. I felt a tug on my bag and thought maybe it had got stuck on the bike’s handle. I pulled my bag towards me and looked behind. The bike rider was gone inside that link road and my bag was nowhere to be seen. The guards of that shop were present there. And I yelled: Do something!

The guards stayed glued to their spots like wax-statues and muttered, “We would call the Dolphin Force. They would come and do ‘something’" I was bewildered.

While I was reconciling myself to the idea that the armed guards could have chased the bike rider very successfully or shot at his bike and fell him, I ran my hand over my neck in an anxiety ridden action. And to the surprise of my shoulder-angels writing about my good/bad deeds, my dupatta was not there! And instead there were abrasions that I began to feel just then.

The much-touted Dolphin Force arrived later with their usual pomp and show after nothing had been said yet all had been done. In a strikingly same parrot-like fashion, they queried about my losses and promised to do ‘something’. And then the police arrived and imitated the same. It felt like an ironical mime that we were performing on back-to-back shows. The police officer asked me if the number plate was ‘125’. I said that I had seen nothing of the number plate due to the flurry of action. He said that that lone bike rider was quite famous in that area and in police circles for snatching purses. It took tremendous restraint and all my childhood upbringing not to give seething caustic replies to this particular question.

My parents arrived some minutes later and the incident was reported to the police who again wrote it down as ‘robbery’. And after we came home, the usual calls began to arrive from Dolphin Force all asking the same question: Were we faster than Domino’s Pizza?

I have tried to steer clear of all statistics and records, but even so some cursory searches on Dolphin Force have indeed revealed no real reduction in crime rate after their arrival. In fact, after their arrival, strange forces of children’s kidnappers seem to have descended from the skies.

Nevertheless, none of my things has been recovered and in this, the DF has come up to my expectations. I spent days without Mobile Facebook, WhatsApp and SoundCloud etc. It is an exceptionally dreary life when you don’t know what your friends are doing and that annoying WhatsApp group seems like a cherished memory.

And what a pain it is to use Facebook on laptop, I have just come to know. Since this blog is nearly finished, let me go back to the Facebook page of Dolphin Force where I am coming across certain very amusing posts to cheer me up, with captions like, “Criminals need to worry, highly skilled Dolphin Force comes to protect citizens.” And on another page named Dolphin Force, there is a video titled “Dolphin will work like this” (you can watch it here) which never fails to crack me up.