Travails of losing your wallet

Long long ago, before humans started living in societies, man lived in small groups. Groups small enough to avoid internal conflicts, but big enough to evade external ones. He ate what he could forage and hunting was his main source of food. Deer, bulls and other such animals were his main kills. Once a kill was eaten he used to discard the leftovers until one day a genius came up with an idea of using the hide to cover himself. Yes he was naked till now; I didn't tell this because that would have taken your mind off the subject. So here was man, finally covering his body.  One school of Evolutionary scientists prefer to call him the first fashion designer of humankind. However there are strong arguments against it, where people argue that fashion designing is more about uncovering the body rather than covering it, hence he cannot be regarded as predecessor of these new age cavemen. With the advent of clothing and gradual evolution of it, people faced the problem of growing fat. Because now they had clothes to gauge them and make them realise that their waistline is no more within the limits of the clothes they made in the feast a few months back. So they decided to put a check on their diet. As the human species started eating less, more and more leftovers remained after dinner. Another genius came into picture and decided to use this hide to make something to keep something. The latter something emerged at a very later date and went on to gain ill-fame under the name money! While the other something came to be known as Wallet.

The journey of wallet has always been one tragic tale filled with gory and gruesome details. People got mugged, pickpocketed and even murdered but most painful of all, sometimes they simply lost it. The tragedy of losing it is that unlike in case of being robbed, mugged or murdered for it, you yourself are responsible in this case. That makes the pain unbearable.

On 20^th of June, I set out of my hostel just like my Neanderthal forefathers would have done when they felt hungry, in search of food. With bile juices grumbling and my motorcycle rumbling, I rutted the silent road of night with only a few passer-by mumbling. All of a sudden I decided to refuel my vehicle and pulled over to a gas station. Once the tank was full, it was now chance for my stomach. I revved and rolled. But after a few yards I felt my pocket was lighter than what it should weigh. I felt like the road cracking in front of my eyes as I came in terms with the reality. My palpitation surged and I felt a cold sweat on my forehead.  My wallet was gone. All sorts of possibilities started clouding my mind. Did my pocket get picked? Did I drop it somewhere? Or did I bring it at all? I quickly eliminated the last possibility because I remember paying at the station and pirouetted my motorcycle in the middle of National highway 4, riding back to the gas station. All I was left with were two possibilities and a hope that the first one wasn't true. After a little search and enquiry near that area, I learnt that my wallet was now gone and decided to de-activate my card on first priority.

The loss of my wallet had taken my mind totally off the pangs of hunger I was suffering. My focus was on stopping anymore loss that I could suffer. Luckily, I spotted an ATM of the bank I had my account in; I got the number for customer care. I am not sure who invented this service but I believe there was a typo when this service was launched. It was meant to be CUSTOMER SCARE instead of what we usually hear. I called them up and a recording of a girl with sore throat kept welcoming me for few minutes. The horror of living in a state which has a characteristic language is that the customer care for any network will repeat everything thrice: Once in each Hindi, English and the local language. After you are done with selecting the language, it narrates an unfathomable long list of options out of which you have to make a choice with crossed fingers hoping it to be the correct one. Finally when I got the option meant for deactivating lost cards, there was another flurry of instructions:-

Your card is not disabled unless our operator confirms that to you…   followed by a horrible music which will make you feel sorry for ridiculing Bappi Lahiri. One more common thing in all customer scare service is that once this torture is over, they threaten you that your call may be recorded so behave yourself while talking to our guys and assure you that someone will take your call in a while. After five minutes of this recording playing repeatedly, I decided I better get back to hostel and do it on the internet. This was easily done. And so the chapter was closed. I suffered a loss of some 200 bucks, a pan card and an ATM card - reissuing both of which would cost me another 200 bucks and a good night sleep, because I was still hungry and all the shops were closed by now.

Just when I thought the nightmare was over, somebody pointed out that I must lodge an FIR in case my Identity on PAN card is misused. All the episodes of interactions with cops were quickly played in my mind in a series of flashbacks. Be it the passport verification, affidavit, licence or even helmetless driving for that matter. I have never had a pleasant experience with them and nor have they because I never shell out a single penny and they don’t let anyone go without grabbing some dough from the victim.  The very next day, after my office hours I rode to the nearest station.

The nearest police station was a debilitated building in the middle of a residential colony, with couple of cubicles to make it look like an office. But in the end the cops in Khaki destroyed any effort to make it look less like a police station. A lady cop passed me by. I excused myself and asked for lodging an FIR.

“Kuthe..” She asked in Marathi with an underlying assumption that whoever steps on the soil of Maharashtra learns Marathi quicker than Avast updates its virus definition updates.

“Sorry… Hindi Please” I asserted myself as a hindi-glot. The look on her face changed for a while and then she continued asking me, this time however in Hindi. As soon as I told her where I lost my wallet, she quickly quipped. “E to aapko pradhikaran Choaki mein Likaana padega”(This complaint has to be registered in Pradhikaran Chowki)

This fight for jurisdiction is something that has pestered Indian citizen for years. Sometimes it worsens to such an extent that an accident victim may lie half dead on the border of two cities while the cops keep deciding who should register the case.

Disheartened, I walked out of the station and rode to Pradhikaran Police chowki. This chowki was a single storeyed building, debilitated to an equal extent like the previous one, or may be more and looked like a house in a city that has just seen a nuclear holocaust. With nobody inside the building, doors wide open, files scattered on the desk, it appeared as if I was in a post-apocalyptic world. The fan hooked to the beige colored ceiling kept whirling like a drunken dancer in a cheap bar.  Seeping water from pipelines behind the walls made hauntingly recognizable shapes on them. One such shape looked like a wailing infant. I kept looking at it for a while. Then I turned my gaze to the pile of files lying around. Killing my time like this, I waited there for about half an hour but nobody came.  Finally I gave up.

Losing a wallet was not as simple as it sounded. It was definitely an experience on its own. I learnt a few things for sure. Firstly, never call customer care when you lose your card, use internet instead. Secondly never carry anything in your wallet for which you have to go to police station. And Last but not the least, that even if you have to go to the station, choose a place near the police station to report in the FIR.