Forgive me! Returning the television: Thief returns stolen valuables from Maharashtra’s legendary poet Narayan Surve's home

Earlier this month, an unidentified thief broke into the house of one of Maharashtra’s great poets, Narayan Surve, and stole an LED television, which he returned with a sorry note. Surve who is renowned for his poems about the struggles of the proletariat, passed away in 2010. His daughter and son-in-law now live in his home which is situated in Navi Mumbai. 

As per the police, the thief entered the house when Surve’s daughter Sujata and her husband Ganesh Ghare were out, and stole 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.

When Surve's daughter Usha and her husband Ganesh Ghare returned on July 14, after being away for 10 days, they found the flat ransacked but they saw a note stacked on the TV 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.”

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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. 

The family has registered an FIR about some of the missing things excluding salt, rice, masalas and a few kilos of various dals from the kitchen, which the thief took away, as per Hindustan Times report. The daughter believes that the thief must have seen Surve’s photos and trophies, including the Padma Shri scroll, and must have been hit by remorse. 

A case has been registered against under Sections 305, 331(3) and 331(4) of the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita. Meanwhile, the CCTV footage is being investigated and fingerprints have been scanned by a forensic team. 


About Narayan Surve

Narayan Surve is well-known for his 1966 collection “Majhe Vidyapeeth” (My University), which talks about the struggles and resilience of the labour class. In 1973, he was given the Soviet Land Nehru Award for his writings on labour rights and social justice.