Why I love Velcro

Last night I almost got mugged. Or maybe I survived an attempted mugging. The correct lingo eludes me. I’m not trying to scare you, because I still live in one of the safest neighborhoods, but I stick out like a luminescent ATM machine in the dark night. This was undoubtedly the scariest moment I’ve had here, but once the adrenaline passed, I find it makes a good story. Lastly, I feel kind of badass saying that I single-handedly fended off a mugger.

In retrospect I should have seen it coming. Not physically, but as I left the American Club at 9:30pm (I didn’t want to stay too late, because Dhaka is pretty sketchy at night) I even discussed with my friend how vulnerable we are as white women in Bangladesh. First because women aren’t usually out on the streets and second because I see approximately one other white person a day. Perhaps over confident after spending a month here with no security issues (and forgetting that I usually have a male friend walk me home), I hopped on a rickshaw and we started the ride home, which is only about 10 minutes.

As we entered my district, I looked helplessly at the women and children huddled on the side of the street. During the day I try to convince myself that people begging have a home, have some money, that they just convince their children it’s a game to see who can get the most taka (money) from people. But at night, there’s no denying that these people are homeless. A child curled up to sleep on a newspaper as men leave the mosque at night. Babies trying to cling to their mothers or siblings, all of whom treat them not as babies should be cared for, but as another tool utilized for begging.

Distracted by these thoughts and also the surprisingly nice weather—the perfect temperature with a gentle breeze—I gasped as I felt someone grab onto my messenger bag which I stupidly had put on the side of me facing the street. First I thought it was just a child climbing onto the rickshaw, but as I looked over a car had pulled up beside us. They probably saw us drive by, with me sitting like a little-happy-go-lucky foreign woman. I had heard about people in cars/motorcycles stealing purses from people on riskshaws before. You’re better off just putting the bag between your legs and hope for the best, because the last thing you want is a car to drive up, grab your bag, and pull you along with it (it’s happened before). The next few seconds were a blur of me clinging to my bag as the car started to speed up with their hands still grabbing my bag, and my rickshaw driver helpless to do anything. But they lost their grip no my bag and sped away in their car that would suggest they don’t actually need the cash, and my rickshaw driver shouted a little at them and asked if I was OK. The next few minutes were the worst because I had no idea if they would come back, if they had followed me before and knew where I lived. Fortunately we were close to home, so I paid my driver, told him to be careful, and stepped into my gated house, finally able to calm down a little.

In the elevator up to my floor I looked at myself in the mirror and at my bag, which looked like they had torn the cross-strap (the hefty shoulder strap was still on me). Actually, the cross-strap is attached on one side by Velcro, so it was only the Velcro that had come undone. I wondered if that’s why they lost their grip—which is serendipitous because I usually wear my bag with the cross-strap facing my body so that people can’t grab onto it, but today I put my bag on backwards by accident and decided to keep it that way. Still in the elevator, I laughed out loud and cursed the bastards for trying to steal my bag. I tried not the think about what would have happened if they had grabbed the shoulder strap. A rickshaw is no match against a fast foreign car, but thanks to my Velcro strap, like a lizard’s tail that comes off when stepped on, it was just a small scare and I’m a little wiser (also I highly recommend Timbuk2 bags).