Wandering Wallets & travel documents.

Sometime in 2013:

Life sets a beautiful rhythm for folks in their early years of post retirement. Kind of there is time for everything. Lazing up from the bed, sitting in the balcony listening to the endless chirping of birds as they get going at day break, reading up Times of India missing almost nothing, sipping the second cup of tea till the last drop, adjusting the blinds to keep the sunshine to just right and sometimes to ensure the safety of the 32 odd pages of the paper from the drizzle — these are all part of how the mornings dawn on you. But it’s unusual for the door bell to ring at 8.30 in the morning. It did happen that day though — a Monday morning. .

Rekha opens the door and announces -here’s someone for you. I haul myself to the door and see that it’s the youngster from the grocery shop where I go occasionally (meaning not regularly). He flashes a gentle smile at me, holds up a ziplock bag with a wallet in it and asks me :

Saab, yeh aap ka batua hai kya?

I give it a once over and confirm to him nahin..yeh mera nahin hai.

I wait a few seconds to give him time enough to vanish so that I don’t close the door on his face.But he is hesitant to leave and says .. dekho tho sahi,, aap ka batua cupboard me hai ya nahin …

this time I take the ziplock bag from him and give it a more careful look and return it to him, saying waise tho mera jaise hi hai, lakin mera nahin.

At this stage as luck would have it Rekha joins in and stops short of telling me what’s the right thing to do. As the shop boy was very insistent even after this, I decide to oblige him and look up in the chest of drawers where I usually keep my car keys, wallet & wrist watch on returning home after shopping dos. To my utter surprise the wallet is missing. I come back to the door and accept the wallet and check it. Well it contained my Aadhar Card, my driving licence, my credit cards, visiting cards and a fair bit of currency notes. Everything is just the way it usually is. I thank him and tell him that I would visit the shop & Seth a while later.

Rekha & I had already locked our eyes. She had realised that both of us had gone to that shop on the previous Friday evening and had not stepped out on Saturday & Sunday. Even on the third day, I had not realised that something was missing. Well, she enjoys giving advice, especially when I am pretty defenceless..& sheepish. Yes, I haven’t heard the last of it even in 2020.

I visit the Seth at the shop around noon. As I thanked him, he is pretty biz like… yeh sab hota hai saab…aadmi kabi kabi bhool bhi jata hai na. He says he waited for me to come looking for the wallet on Saturday & Sunday, but since I didn’t ..he opened the wallet, checked the Aadhar Card for the address & reached it home on Monday morning first thing.I guess guys are more forgiving. The Seth was my age or may be two years older at best. We two sure belong to a nice generation..

(Remember there was no Google Pay then, currency was the thing at neighbourhood shops for all transactions — Covid 19 has ensured that it’s now all digital — PhonePe or Google Pay at our milk vendor’s at our veggies vendors, at all grocery shops, all medical shops and at the neighbourhood temple counter as well.)

These are indeed the kind of things that help reinforce faith in the goodness of fellow human beings.

Sometime in 2004..

(Age has caught up — so seek your indulgence reg the year). My colleague Cushrow Jussawala & I had gone on a visit to Voltas Works at Pant Nagar. It was an Employee Engagement related visit. On completion of work, we took a convenient train starting from Pant Nagar around 10.30 AM & terminating at Old Delhi station around 3.30 PM .

It was late afternoon say almost 4PM, when we alighted at the old Delhi Railway Station after visiting Pant Nagar facility (Jayant Balan was heading the Works there).. We were both sitting alongside in the two seated part of the 2nd AC Chair Car Express Train. Sharing similar backgrounds in HR in Voltas and also line assignments for extended duration, we were able to hold conversations through the journey and were both looking to get to the Delhi airport soonest to catch our planes to Mumbai & Hyderabad later in the evening. We walked out with our trolley bag packs, met the guy with the placard at platform gate and walked towards a the place where the driver had parked the car. The driver opened the rear boot and as we were keeping the trolleys, I felt my back pocket for the wallet. To my instant dismay, it wasn’t there. For a moment I stood stunned & was trying a fast rerun of the day.

A full half minute later, I told Jassa — hey, just hold it, my wallet is missing. I ran back onto the platform. The train was still there on the platform and a new set of passengers had boarded for the return journey to Pant Nagar. The seat which I had taken earlier was already occupied by the passenger who was allotted the seat for the return journey. The return journey could commence anytime as the incoming train was a bit late and it was already past the scheduled time. All that I had to do was to dig my hand in, grab the wallet which was securely kept in the netting attached to the backside of seat in front of me. People usually keep their reading material, small eats packs, reading glasses and occasionally their wallets as well. I smiled at the guy presently in the seat and he smiled back. It was as if it was biz as usual. The wallet had remained untouched . Came back to Jassa, narrated the story and we were all set on our ride to the airport.

Sometime in early 1990s.

One Thursday afternoon I was at Mumbai airport to catch a flight to Chennai. By the believe me, the Mumbai airport terminal in the 90s do not even remotely look like the present one. It has changed for the better is an understatement. After checking in and before boarding, as is a usual practice I visited the bookshop looking for books to read. I picked up an odd ball management book, flipped through a few pages and then decided against buying..

I was having a day’s work at Chennai on Friday and had to be back in office at Mumbai only on Monday morning. My in laws live at Thiruvanmiyoor, Chennai and I was planning to stay with them that evening on Thursday. It was going to be a pleasant & relaxed evening. Through the flight I was thinking up of a surprise visit to my mom at Kochi on Saturday and return to Mumbai on Sunday evening. This involved rerouting my Chennai- Mumbai ticket to Kochi- Mumbai and also procuring a train ticket on Trivandrum Mail for Friday evening to Ernakulam.

First things first. Those were the days of no mobile phone, no internet connection, no IRCTC and even more interesting- just Indian Airlines. I don’t know if many people recollect that the tickets were issued by the airlines in their special stationery. At the I A kiosk at Chennai airport, one could book tickets, reroute by paying the excess amount etc. Out of the arrival area, I walked to the IA counter and asked to reroute the Chennai- Mumbai coupon to Kochi- Mumbai and by paying cash towards the additional fare involved. It was around 3 .30 PM and as there was no rush the transaction could be completed in less than ten minutes. I paid cash of about Rs 100 or so, checked the details of the reissued new ticket and put it in my shirt pocket.

I took an auto and reached Valmiki Nagar Thiruvanmiyoor at about 4.15. After alighting from the auto I was looking to pay the auto fellow. That’s when I realised that the small inter office brown reusable envelope in which I had about Rs 1900/ was missing. I really didn’t know what to do. Rang the door bell . Requested in laws for money to pay up the auto. After settling the auto payment, I sat down for tea and then in my room I started to rerun the events of the afternoon. I concluded that I must have left it at the counter at Mumbai bookshop. Towards 5.30 PM, suddenly it struck me that I had opened the envelope at the IA counter at Chennai airport. I also recollected that I had put back the balance cash in the envelope while at the counter. I had now to take a chance at the airport counter. So took some money from my father in law and rushed back to the airport counter by 6.15.

On enquiry at the counter, I was told that the staff on duty had called Voltas Office at Armenian Street at Parrys to inform that a Voltas Inter office brown envelope was left behind by a certain Vijayakumar and that he could collect it by identifying himself at the counter. It had so happened that the person who came to the counter after me, saw the envelope at the counter ledge and handed it over to the staff. . I wanted to know how they thought of leaving the message at Voltas– it was that the inter office brown envelope had mentioned from VIL Accts to Vijayakumar VIL Peronnel and highlighted tour advance. So they were taking a chance bcoz they could connect that one Vijayakumar had got a ticket reissued and left the counter a while back. Those were the days of the two volumes city Telephone Directory.. someone at the IA counter actually took pains to find the Voltas number, ring up and leave the message. The counter staff wanted me to check and confirm if all the money was in tact etc. I had showed them the rerouted ticket ( still safe in my shirt pocket) to establish my identity.

All is well that ends well. Huh. I suspect that my mother in law rang up Rekha and filled the details as the welcome back at Mumbai was amazing.

As the story goes I completed my work at Chennai, reached the Central Station next evening and was lucky to be able to buy an unreserved ticket, get on to the train, befriend a TT well enough for allotting me berth to Ernakulam. But the next morning it took a bad turn. My mom had left by car to Guruvayur the previous evening with my brother and was returning only on Saturday afternoon.. till that time I had to be at a neighbors. Part of life , as they say.

Sometime in 2010.

The passport return saga is as wild as it gets. I was sitting in the biz class lounge at Mumbai domestic airport, sipping up green tea for which I had developed a taste for. (Helped feel part of elitists circles as most guys in the waiting lounge liked to claim). Those days if one had a Silver or Gold Frequent Flier Card of JetAirways you could use the biz class lounge while doing domestic sector travel. You are issued an invitation card while checking in and you had to hand it over at reception desk at the biz class lounge.

Back to biz. At the Mumbai domestic check in I was asked to show an identity doc — for checking in. That morning I was travelling Mumbai- Chennai- Colombo. I had two sets of tickets with me — one set a biz class return ticket for Chennai- Colombo flights for later in the day and another set for Mumbai- Chennai return travel. As I had kept both sets of tickets in my passport, it was easier for me to handover the passport which I did. I was issued the boarding pass and on I went past the security to the departures area lounge.

A good half hour later there is a hushed announcement over the lounge PA system requesting me to identify at the reception desk.. I was informed that the counter staff who had checked me in a while earlier wishes to meet me and is waiting at the other side of the security check area. I dutifully walked over to the security area to be greeted with a warm smile by the same chic who wasn’t particularly cheerful at the counter. She was there with a courteous smile just across the long security barrier desk. She extends her hands over the desk to hand over the passport and the set of tickets. I am dumbstruck. I thanked her profusely. Infront of the security person. There was no way she could have walked into the departure area, nor could I have walked out of the departure area. Mercifully, it had not even occurred to me that I had left behind the passport & tickets at the counter. That spared me the ulcers and a situation of utter helplessness & embarrassment.

The passport walked back to me. Things happen .. don’t they. Miracles happen to ordinary folks.

I will save other adventures for later.