I am a believer…

The story so far… I lost my laptop in a virar bound train.
I had boarded the train from Charni road .. Crowded as usual.. Gave my bag to a fellow commuter to keep it on the rack… And forgot myself in the crowd…. A few stations before home I got a seat. Surprising! This ensured I don’t remember the bag.. Usually I don’t ferry the laptop daily, unless its a weekend or when I would need it for working for home. This being a long weekend I chose to ferry it back….

At Vasai, thanks to the crowd I managed to push myself out of the train.. Ofcourse conveniently forgetting that my bag is still inside… A usual I was walking back home. I bought some firecrackers for the kids who come at my place for pooja as a ritual since I was a kid! After bargaining like a woman.. And closing the deal I took an auto which I left before I could have even comforted my self in. Ran back to the vendor asked him to keep the bag for some time and ran towards the station master.

A few sweaty moments and a few gasps later he quickly pulled up a book and suggested that the train would be back in Vasai at 8:11.. The time was 8:12.. I ran like crazy to catch that train… And catch I did.. Stormed in but it wasn’t around. Then heard the timing and it was a 8:15 train!

Went back to the station master and responded in negative. He quickly buzzed his virar and nalasopara counterparts about it to check if anyone had reported it. But alas.. No luck there either.

I asked him timing of the train.. At other station and pinged my friends who stay near station… SpyD was in Nagpur.. Ketan was with a client. Winzee couldn’t have reached!

So back to home.. On my way I updated Facebook with the info for anyone living close to a station to call up.
Manan from mumbai central called up.. I told him the incident.. A few calls later he was at mumbai station trying to catch the train there which would reach at 9:13
I also did a quick google search on my name to check the page hit and updated my number on the first link (linkedin profile)

A few more Calls with Manan and explaining him the what’s, the where’s and when he waited there and caught the train.
Sadly no bag there. He did that for a couple of more trains and then finally gave up.. And so had I..

Called up my boss.. Let him knew about the incident.

He was pretty cool with it and said he will find how to go about with it later.

A few minutes later he called me back… Wished me happy diwali.. And I was confused thinking he had called to inform me the process.. But he was saying something else.. Or something that sounded different.

He said that someone found my laptop and was trying to contact me.. But the number on my vcard had recently changed so couldn’t get through. The person even tried contacting the Vodafone corporate office and customer care, trying to explain them what had happened…

He managed to find a friend who was an ex employee at Vodafone and so figured out hrs contact. However the HRMS also has my old number listed. The HR person tried contacting my peers and then finally my boss to ascertain if something like that had indeed happened.

So my boss adviced me to contact the hr person and coordinate. Darn.. Her number wasn’t reachable for those 5 attempts in as many seconds.. Or was that as many minutes.

I got a call from a new number… Someone asking me if I had lost my laptop.. And the big grumpy frowny face did a somersault and became a huge grin!

He found me from facebook and contacted me via the number listed on the status update.

A few calls later and a train to virar later I got my laptop back. Ironically his father is a railways employee who gave the laptop to him and told him to try find me as he knew giving it at the railway lost and found department would mean that it end up as a happy diwali gift for someone!

On my way back from virar.. In a second class bogey I saw a kid playing jigsaw puzzle with what used to be his mobile phone.. Another guy seeing this offered him his phone in case he wanted to update his whereabouts to people. The kid happily took it and ringed back home. A few calls later and a thank you later the conversation came back to if God/good people exists…

Oh boy! They do! And I chipped my incident with them too when I got off the train…!