Friday 25 May 2007

Lost in silence...

On the silent mode. And lost forever. Diminishing the otherwise strong faith in the inherent goodness of every taxi-wallah, every auto-rickshaw-wallah, every bus conductor, indeed every soul in charge of, or hanging around, all means of transport my father's been on. He was proud, up until this moment, of having tested this goodness (as a matter of chance, not choice) and happily reporting a positive result at every instance of his mobile-phone unexpectedly finding its way back to him hours after he would leave it 'there somewhere'. It was as if he planned to lose it but loved to find his plans come to naught. And every time my mum and my sister would annoyingly say '…one day it'll not come back ok. You're just lucky some decent guy found it', in a manner that suggested they perhaps prayed sincerely for such misfortune!

I only knew that when it'd finally go (I always hoped it wouldn't but believed it would) the sense of loss would not be borne with a fitting sense of equanimity for the simple reason that he was no longer a creature of the pen and none of those numbers were jotted in any diary unlike in the old days. He rues it now. This time his plan succeeded. My mum's and sister's prayers answered. And it's a joyless moment for everyone. More regrettably, the verdict now is- 'what's the world coming to… this would not have happened in the days of the yore'! Of course it wouldn't have. Who had cells to lose in those days!

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