Shoplifters of the world, unite and take over!

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Shoplifting isn't what it used to be. But before I go to dealing with the possible collapse of capitalism emanating from a nicked shampoo bottle from Aisle 2, let me go all soppy-voiced and dewy-eyed on the most capricious of all misdemeanours: retail pilfering.

Shoplifting lies at the crossroads of socialism and capitalism — except instead of intended equal distribution of pilfered items, the latter become part of one's own inventory.

Or, at least, that was how it was in the Satya Yug when I dabbled in the penumbral arts.

It was a rite of passage, a societal check to see how buffed up a shop's security system was, much like the sterling service that hackers provide these days. After an early, quick read through Machiavelli's Discourse About the Provision of Money, I maintained one fundamental rule when engaging in nifty pilfering: buy something, anything, when stealing something else.

This would always significantly mitigate the retailer's suspicion by marking me, regardless of my more nefarious plans, as a bona fide buyer.

I would buy a postcard or two while keenly aware of the baby bump under my jacket registering the presence of Arthur C Clarke's Tales From the White Hart (which subsequently became a birthday gift for a friend), or the last book I ever stole, a Penguin Classics edition of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I realised much later what Thomas Crown felt like stealing the Monet.

I was never apprehended — although a friend of mine with whom I had once gone on a raiding mission was after being found with a Sunil Gangopadhyay paperback under his jacket.

He was let off only after being threatened of 'shame' and his mother came to pick him up. (I last saw him grinning at me from behind the speeding car.) Even