One of the bad days of my life (Lost Camera in UK)
The third trip to UK came with a notice as long as the one power gives you before going off. I was planning a 3 week vacation from Diwali (October 28, 2008) till mid November ’08 – the first half at home celebrating Diwali and meeting friends, and the latter half preparing for CAT (scheduled on November 16, 2008). I reached home on 27th evening, worshipped Lord Ganesha and Goddess Laxmi on diwali (28th), celebrated my birthday (29th) with family including two sweet nephews – both of them thinking it was their birthday. Met some friends on October 30, 2008, and then went to Delhi to meet another set of friends on November 1, 2008. Now, I am supposed to leave Delhi for Bangalore on November 6, 2008 with 4-5 days at Gurgaon meeting some more friends. But not everything goes as per you.
And all of a sudden, I find myself sitting in BA 256 (New Delhi – London) on November 2, 2008. The day didn’t start on a very good note. I started from home at 0410 hrs. All packing was done a day before in an hours’ time – so in all probability, something was going to be missing. I have never seen reality such close to probability. After we were 2 kms far from home, I realized I missed passport at home. We drove back, took the passport and started again. Lightning struck again. Just when we were about to reach airport, I realized I didn’t have my wallet with me. I could have done without it – if it didn’t have my one and only international card inside. All the way back home, I was thinking how could I miss twice? It so happened that while I was picking all the stuff, the purse slipped under the pillow. Anyways, needed one more to-and-fro journey and thank God, I finally reached the airport. I was praying to the Lord that nothing should happen now. He didn’t cancel but postponed his plans.
All through the journey, there were clear skies. I could see a fascinating aerial view of Pakistan, Iran, Caspian Sea, then Europe – with rivers, sea, mountains, sand dunes and what not. I took a lot of pictures of all those views from different angles thinking this would be a gem in my collections of pictures. The entertainment system inside was also a contributor to why was I looking outside for so much of the time? There were four hindi movies in entertainment system – Jannat, De Taali, Bhootnath, and Tashan – decide for yourself what should it be called? Extremely bored, I watched Tashan, and a few documentaries (they were good - one on Mike Tyson and another one on Pele – the best footballer ever).
Reached London Heathrow at 1130 hrs. I had planned to meet Mr. Sumit Kumar in London on November 2, and that’s why didn’t book a corporate cab for myself. After reaching the airport, I realized I had lost Sumit’s contact number. No contact possible now. The issue was to reach Nottingham. Cab asked for 200 pounds which is pretty huge – so I thought of taking a bus from airport to Nottingham. The coach service was pretty good, and I took Coach (Service No. 230 at 1150 hrs, Coach no: FJ54ZDG) from Heathrow terminal 5 to Nottingham. The scenery alongside the route was great. Again the camera was being utilized to the fullest till St. Leicester Margaret’s Bus stand, Leicester – when the coach broke down. We were told that another coach will be coming in an hour and I came down the bus, with the laptop bag and camera at my seat. I went back to my seat in 5 minutes and didn’t find my camera. It’s yet to be found out. (I have given so many details of coach knowingly, as someone may want to return the camera sometime. This is a CANON A550 camera inside a black pouch) In the meantime no outsider came inside – clearly telling that this was some smart work of someone inside. I checked the bus, but couldn’t find it – never expected also to find it. I was in awful state for a long time. I have been constantly bombarded by opinions like everything is good about the developed countries, and all bad things like thefts, corruption etc belong to second grade countries. Honestly, I never expected this here. And that was precisely the reason why I left it even though I was standing at 2 minutes away. Gave my contact id/number to the driver- just as a hope if someone returned it.
Reached Nottingham at 6 pm, had dinner and slept with all the pics still wandering in my mind. I didn’t want to go outside that day fearing something else going wrong. A dear friend of mine, Udham Singh, once said, “Some days are not yours.” I forgot to ask him how can we get the list of those days?
And all of a sudden, I find myself sitting in BA 256 (New Delhi – London) on November 2, 2008. The day didn’t start on a very good note. I started from home at 0410 hrs. All packing was done a day before in an hours’ time – so in all probability, something was going to be missing. I have never seen reality such close to probability. After we were 2 kms far from home, I realized I missed passport at home. We drove back, took the passport and started again. Lightning struck again. Just when we were about to reach airport, I realized I didn’t have my wallet with me. I could have done without it – if it didn’t have my one and only international card inside. All the way back home, I was thinking how could I miss twice? It so happened that while I was picking all the stuff, the purse slipped under the pillow. Anyways, needed one more to-and-fro journey and thank God, I finally reached the airport. I was praying to the Lord that nothing should happen now. He didn’t cancel but postponed his plans.
All through the journey, there were clear skies. I could see a fascinating aerial view of Pakistan, Iran, Caspian Sea, then Europe – with rivers, sea, mountains, sand dunes and what not. I took a lot of pictures of all those views from different angles thinking this would be a gem in my collections of pictures. The entertainment system inside was also a contributor to why was I looking outside for so much of the time? There were four hindi movies in entertainment system – Jannat, De Taali, Bhootnath, and Tashan – decide for yourself what should it be called? Extremely bored, I watched Tashan, and a few documentaries (they were good - one on Mike Tyson and another one on Pele – the best footballer ever).
Reached London Heathrow at 1130 hrs. I had planned to meet Mr. Sumit Kumar in London on November 2, and that’s why didn’t book a corporate cab for myself. After reaching the airport, I realized I had lost Sumit’s contact number. No contact possible now. The issue was to reach Nottingham. Cab asked for 200 pounds which is pretty huge – so I thought of taking a bus from airport to Nottingham. The coach service was pretty good, and I took Coach (Service No. 230 at 1150 hrs, Coach no: FJ54ZDG) from Heathrow terminal 5 to Nottingham. The scenery alongside the route was great. Again the camera was being utilized to the fullest till St. Leicester Margaret’s Bus stand, Leicester – when the coach broke down. We were told that another coach will be coming in an hour and I came down the bus, with the laptop bag and camera at my seat. I went back to my seat in 5 minutes and didn’t find my camera. It’s yet to be found out. (I have given so many details of coach knowingly, as someone may want to return the camera sometime. This is a CANON A550 camera inside a black pouch) In the meantime no outsider came inside – clearly telling that this was some smart work of someone inside. I checked the bus, but couldn’t find it – never expected also to find it. I was in awful state for a long time. I have been constantly bombarded by opinions like everything is good about the developed countries, and all bad things like thefts, corruption etc belong to second grade countries. Honestly, I never expected this here. And that was precisely the reason why I left it even though I was standing at 2 minutes away. Gave my contact id/number to the driver- just as a hope if someone returned it.
Reached Nottingham at 6 pm, had dinner and slept with all the pics still wandering in my mind. I didn’t want to go outside that day fearing something else going wrong. A dear friend of mine, Udham Singh, once said, “Some days are not yours.” I forgot to ask him how can we get the list of those days?
posted by Udham Singh at
9:28 PM
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