Sunday, March 10, 2013

Instincts

What I am going to talk about is something which most of us would have experienced at one point or another.
Today I was out to a place near Malleshwaram. For those of you who are from Bangalore, you would know that the very temple from which Malleshwaram gets its name - Kadu Malleshwara temple is right there . Today being ShivRatri , I had planned to goto the temple after my work.
By 1:45 PM  I finished my work and ventured towards the temple, I started following the bee line for Darshanam , by the time I reached the end, I thought it was just out of question for me to stand in the line and wait for Darshanam.
With a bitter mind, I treadled back to the Bus stop to catch my bus. But before that I had some minor shopping, so gradually after finishing the shopping, i rushed towards the Bus Stop. I waited close to 20 minutes, towards the end of my wait, I saw that most of the folks now waiting in the stop were to board the bus I was waiting for.
Finally the bus arrived and I was happy that I could even get a seat with window. With all my luggage, I for a minute , thought that now that I have boarded the direct bus and dont have to open my bag, put it below my shopping stuff . I was then lost in my own thoughts, which is actually quite normal with me - to think of every bougainvillea bush to think of as a bouquet which nature is offering us.
The lady next to me dropped her change in between  the journey and was continuously asking her kid to bend down and collect the same. I am usually helpful and in any other such situations would have got p myself and helped with collecting the change. But not today, today I was trying to fast and was very tired with all the heat  and shopping. So just let the child get down and collect it by herself.
All of a sudden at one stop when some people alighted, the conductor on the bus asked to check if I had my wallet.
I am the kind of person who never , even for a minute, hands over her bag to anybody and this includes my family members as well. I thought he was just saying it and casually checked my bag, which was below two heavy covers filled with my shopping , but still well organized.
I was in for a surprise, it was missing. He just told me to alight and chase folks who got down just before a minute. I ran like a mad dog, I still dint have any idea about who had picked it, the bus was stopped and waiting. I ran and ran and could not see anybody on the road who was there a few minutes back in the bus. Finally, while I was running, and mentally calculating what I had lost, I decided to come back to the bus .
During my chase I realized that I did not have more than 200Rs in my wallet , but I had almost all my cards in it. So I thought it better to start blocking them since the thieves were already on their way back home with the booty.
When I came back, the Conductor on the bus  proudly announced that he knew that the lady next to me was a thief , what I actually thought as a innocent kid collecting the change was actually stealing my wallet from underneath. I was angry and told him that there is no use of boasting of his cognizance since the damage was already done. I had become the curious case of lost wallet in the bus.
The next hour went mostly in blocking my cards and getting them reissued. While I did this, most of the ladies started chatting, some were blaming me to be careless, some the conductor, some the thief. But it was a good gossip for most of them and an event which most would recollect with their family - the ideal Shivratri Jagarane Gossip so to speak.
Sometimes when these events happen while you are upset that something like this happened, there will also be SilverLining. For me , While coming back from temple path , after cancelling my venture to bode lords Darshanam, I was feeling and hoping that my rejection of tedious path does not cause some problem. It did happen- i lost my wallet and would undergo some pain, till I am settled back. To add woes to the problem, just on the previous day I had moved some cards from my wallet and added a new one.
Silver lining was , I wanted to withdraw money, and for various reasons, I had postponed it for a week. I was running on scanty money and had spent most of what i had in the shopping . The other part was the ease with which I could within minutes block all the cards and save my self any more damage.
The customer care executives were very understanding and helped me very well, so much so that one of them asked me what all bank numbers i needed and was ready with the customer care numbers.
So in many ways today was memorable, one of the fall outs of today might be more surprising in future years.

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