Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Security of Your Home!

“No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.” … Willa Cather

Willa Cather, in full Wilella Sibert Cather was a American novelist noted for her portrayals of the settlers and frontier life on the American plains & no wonder with a career as writer when USA was going through a civic change in the society i.e. late 1800 to early 1900, that was the most unsecure time she has penned down in her quote! Since long security which is probably most neglected factor in a country like ours was on my mind, especially working in an industry which makes homes & which needs to be secured at its best! Actually three incidences made me to push ahead to take up this aspect & all three happened right around myself & my own constructed buildings though the cause wasn’t lacuna on my part as an engineer cum builder, yet some where I was part of it as an resident if not builder!

Incidence 1, A: I live in a ten storied building in mid city western part of Pune i.e. Patwardhan Baug which you can call as up market area! The building has been built by my Ex Employee some twenty years back & is of fairly good quality, when CC TV type’s things were not yet in practice. Some twelve years back there was one house breaking incidence in our society & I was chairman then. After that I got the entire entrance lobby fenced up with solid MS grill & a safety door right at entrance. We made a practice to lock the entrance door post mid night & keep the key with the watchman which sits in security cabin at main entrance of the building. There is an intercom system which connects every flat to the watchman cabin & if any resident wants to go out or come in post mid night then he or she has to call from respective flat (or vice versa) to the watchman’s cabin & ask watchman to open the lock of safety door at entrance lobby & then enter in lobby which has got access to the lifts! For last nearly twelve years this is the system our society is following & touchwood till now there is not a single incidence of burglary in our society! Some two years back the society’s body got fixed CC TVs all around the building as well at gate of the building. Few months back at wee hours of night local police came to my home & informed me a guy residing at my next door is laying on road in-front of our building’s gate & some goons have beaten him us. I went down hurriedly did the necessary formalities of taking him to hospital etc. It was a road rage fight case & fortunately the wounds were not severe yet police launched the case & asked for the CC TV footage of gate camera & inquired for the night watchman. Well the footage did show the incidence clearly of few guys coming from a car getting out & beating my neighbor but due to the quality of the camera no face was visible neither the car number. And then the watchman of the society instead trying to defend my neighbor or calling for help just ran away from the scene & never returned, fled from the job, is what the security agency manager later informed us!

B: We have one automatic lift & one manual lift & recently my seventy year old mother got stuck in auto lift with no lights in lift as well no way to communicate with outside. The watchman was sitting at gate & has no clue that some old lady has got stuck in lift. Fortunately she was carrying her cell phone & I was at home so she could call me & I rushed down & somehow opened the lift door & got her out. Our security watchman was old i.e. sixty plus age & he didn’t know how to rescue a person from breakdown lift nor did he have physical strength which was required to open that lift door! There was no intercom arrangement from lift to security or the flats in the lift.

Incidence 2: My office is in a building adjoining to my residence building & here at first floor two offices are there, one is mine & above floors are residences i.e. flats. On ground floor there are six shops & they don’t have any connectivity with main building. We have one gate for entry & exit & in day time we have one watchman & at night two watchmen. One sits outside of gate & another somewhere inside. Here also there is entrance lobby secured with MS Gate which has a locking arrangement & till last month post mid night the MS Gate to lobby used to be locked controlling any person’s entry post mid night & the watchman has keys. Well the complex has 8 CC TV cameras with display monitor of five cameras in lobby as well hard disk storage of the input in society office located in the parking, which is locked. Last week on Sunday morning I got call from one of the residents that one flat in this building at 3^rd floor has broken by burglars. Police came & started investigating & outcome was both the watchmen were clueless how the burglars entered in the complex. Entrance lobby main gate was not locked as per instruction of some flat holder (as per the watchmen) but main gate to the building was locked. The CC TV display monitor in the lobby was smashed by the burglars. At 3^rd floor there are total 3 flats but the only one of which residents has gone out of town has been broke in, rest two flats doors were shut close from outside by the burglars. We have provided MS Safety door to all flats but the lock of MS Safety door was broke apart & same was fate with the latch lock of main door. We provide extra konda (bolt) on safety doors from outside so as when someone is inside nobody should be able to lock the door from outside but for that one has to put lock in that extra konda (bolt) which hasn’t been done by the other two residents who were in their flats at that floor making the burglars possible to lock them from outside. There were no CC TV cameras on every floor staircase lobbies. When police asked for the CC TV footage of ground floor cameras then they came to know the display was on but some battery cell of the recording storage instrument needed to be preplaced which hasn’t been done so no recording was stored though the cameras were on & the cost of that cell was some Rs 50! By the way, nobody from the society has ever bothered to check the recording ever before this happened. When asked why the main entrance lobby wasn’t locked then the reason was there is intercom system but was nonfunctional so it was not possible to communicate with the watchman at night if somebody comes late or wanted to go out, so the MS Safety door of the entrance lobby was kept open! Neither there was maintenance contract of CC TV nor that of intercom system in place by the society. Also for unknown reasons to all residents the outside lights were off for last whole week, nobody bothered to make it on or inquired why the lights around the buildings has been off for a week leave apart taking any action! By the way, out of the two night watchmen, one was new & another was old, diabetic & has been asking money from every flat holder of the society due to his personal debt!

Well, one more thing the camera in the lobby was connected to DVR i.e. recording hard disc in my office with other cameras within the office but when checked that hard disk it was found full & the over right key was off, means when the storage capacity of hard disc gets full which usually is of one month recording, the past recording gets deleted automatically making space for new recording. Neither my admin dept people bothered to check it nor the maintenance contract guys did it, so that camera also gone for waste.

Incidence 3: On that very night one more building near our buildings were made target probably by the same burglar’s gang & one of them was having neither CC TV nor any MS Safety gate at entrance lobby. Another building was having MS Safety gate at entrance lobby but due to maintenance amount collection issue there was no night watchman & CC TV wasn’t in operation due to maintenance contact of the system wasn’t there!

Oh yes, in all this rampage by burglars, the building where I reside as well the one adjoining to ours wasn’t touched; both the buildings has watchman in place right at gate, with CC TV on & entrance lobby securely locked. Our adjoining building has got three watch dogs also in addition which accompanies their watchman for night.

Ok, by now most of the readers have got the essence of my sharing about our attitude towards security of our own home, as even a school going kid can understand the lapses in all above cases after reading my sharing! But then my experience is school going kids are much wiser than most grownups, especially in protecting themselves! Here many will say what police were doing, why we should do all security things when we pay taxes to the govt, what chairman & secretary was doing of the society & blah blah blah but as the quote says ultimately when you call something as your home then it’s your job too, to protect it! As it’s like someone having death insurance & jumping from tenth floor, thinking he won’t die as he has been insured!

I deliberately chose incidences right around myself as even with having so much exposure to building’s systems & security even I too failed (ignored) to look in such details which could have avoided the burglaries or may be made the burglars to postpone their plan of house breaking. As right from checking CCTV systems periodically to not allowing having a watch man who is buried in debt many things could have been done. Speaking about my building’s lift, I got intercom fitted in my auto lift doing expense from my pocket as my family too will be using the lift & I can’t afford someone getting stuck & damaging his or her health in the panic just because my society is not acting fast on such issues. On this, many people will say, this is unfair as society or even the govt is not doing their job why we should suffer by paying for such things as CC TV repairs or Intercom? Well, you are right in asking such but ask every that flat holder whose house has been broken by the burglars & the valuables stolen & then you will realize, he or she alone could have got entire CC TV system fitted leave repairs! I am not supporting lacunas in the system may it be society or police but the are we not expected to be a bit vigilant when our own security is at stake is what I will like to ask all the residents in this city! As all it takes is some curiosity & action to remove the watchman who is not physically fit & always asking for money to the residents, sure he can sell the information for few rupees about lapses in the security of your building to the wrong elements or even turn a blind eye at night to them when they broke in, isn’t it possible?

And even if your builder hasn’t provided any safety measures but spend a bit less on your interiors & use that money for making your home as the building in which your home is located bit secure, is wise way. At the same time, security is an attitude & not just fixing some gadgets; right from a system of keeping record of every person entering & leaving building to keeping the building premise well lit at night, smallest things also does helps to make your home more secure. As well spend some money on the security systems to keep them in working condition, whatever your builder has provided. And this doesn’t need very hi-tech knowledge, as if you come to know your home TV is not working & immediately call the TV guy for repairs, then how can you not know about CC TV of the society is not working? Answer is, you don’t feel need of checking CC TV & that’s why nobody else but your own attitude towards your safety is what going decide security of your home! Like mock drill by police, you can call local police station to check security features of your building & get the necessary things done as per their advise but then we expect police will do on their own! Lets understand this is country of nearly 120 crore people & with lots of disparity among them on wealth front & police cant guard every single home is a bitter fact. They may be having their own reasons or limitations but that doesn’t mean we also neglect our home! And most importantly keep in contact with your neighbors also, sparing some time from Whatsap & FB, it does help as they too can become your watchman.

Well, lastly something for police, indeed they are trying hard for security of the city but somewhere people are losing faith in police is a fact & people are not feeling themselves safe is not a sign of healthy society. As indeed, the citizens must take their own safety precautions yet CC TV type things are in a way postmortem, isn’t it? How in the first place so many people turns or say dare to turn burglars, is the question the so called system named govt should asked to itself, if at all govt wants to make the people feel safe & then act up on it!

Fellow citizens living in buildings, do mind, Police, Govt, Society’s Office Bearers, Watchmen, Security Gadgets, all these things are like insurance of your home as all these exists because of you own that home & one needs to pay the policy premiums at least in time for that! And when its home security, the policy premium is just a little bit of attention by yourself in security aspect of your home as well of the buildings in which your home is located but if you are ignorant or thinks someone else will do that for you, then well, you have written your own fate, is all I will say to conclude!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..

https://youtu.be/g3lx1Nq7pBs

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2018/08/pune-city-no-1.html