What follows is a soul-stirring account of how a gesture of honesty pulled an improbable miracle.
As our train Rajdhani Express neared Delhi station only an hour behind schedule on a sun-baked dawn of 18th Feb, our moods found their much-needed alibis to stay perked up and our steps their much needed spring. The local porters had already jumped inside the bogey to scavenge on their willing preys as the train came to a final halt. One of them tag teamed us and got stuck into our luggage. He asked me to wait on the platform as he would assemble all the luggage there. The driver who came to pick us up completed the sanity-check formalities of sneaking under the seats to make sure none of the personal belonging was being left back for charity. Anyways after much rate haggling with one of the porters, we marched off the train station into the Ajmeri Gate VIP parking. Mother and sister were slow of the blocks and took little longer. After kissing goodbyes with the pesky porters, we finally headed back to our destination in Noida.
When I got home everything appeared normal until an hour later a realization of a missing luggage literally swamped me with a horrendous surge of repentance and guilt. Obviously the missing luggage contained my dearest shoes from abroad and a few pairs of them that would now cost a plenty to buy again. I went into a mini-depression of sorts and started vetting all possible excuses to find an unlikely scapegoat whom I can pass on the baton of guilt. How in the world did the driver miss out on that piece esp when he did his due diligence. Why did not my sis look underneath the seat - after all she was the occupant of the lower berth seat esp when I was watching the luggage on the platform. I was still mad at the driver for his slapdash diligence and wanted to teach him a lesson so I called him and told him, be ready for a trip to the station in the evening as we will try and catch this train on its way back and see if we can find that luggage. Such bogus train of thoughts appeared stuck in a traffic jam inside my jittery panicky mind.
While I was jostling with this traffic snarl, everyone around jumped on the consoling wagon that there was no point repenting and that by now the ragamuffins would have rummaged it out of its resting place and fled to their merrier pastures, and that there is nothing we can do now. Even if the rag-pickers were restricted entry since this was a premium train, the local caterers and coach attendants would have jumped on it at the first sighting and shipped it out to the local thief markets. And if by some tango of fate, such possibilities got evaded, the train would have retired to the loco-shed yards for sanitation proceedings and there was no point rushing back to the station. With a sense of resignation and sinking heart I began accepting the inevitable that those shoes were history and by now possibly have already been accorded their own state funeral. Ouch!!
While I was still miffed at this tragic loss and cursing myself for such carelessness in the hours that followed, I also started feeling some faint inner signals although not quite tuned in, goading me to give a 1% chance of a shot in the dark. I quickly brushed it aside as asinine and continued to curse myself some more. I then tried to shake this all of with some sleep and I did sleep some. The driver called around 4ish if I was still game for a trip back to the train station. By then any hopes of reclaiming the missing piece appeared to have dissolved in my dreams itself and my proclivity felt more subservient to my slumberous orientations I was already languishing in rather than a road outing to the train station with a p factor of 0.01. Hell yeah sleep it is. But then I checked with my mom whether I should give it a shot and appraised her of my own inner vibes that were earlier patting me to give it a try, she gave a resounding yes for a go ahead.
Lately when I embark on a long journey I have eased into this habit of reciting Durga Kavach which is like a shield that supposed to protect you from all quarters. So another feeling that had cropped up from some unknown recess of the subconscious at that very moment was that - in spite of this journey being blessed with such recital, the fate had preordained on the contrary and so how in the world did this happen. Betrothed to that my own inner vibes and my mother's response in the affirmative, I opted for the road trip to the train station. The driver was in splits at the prospect of even a slightest chance of recovery and was taking potshots on me through some aliases who happened to be other drivers who had guffawed at him for even thinking the impossible. I ignored his jibes and started launching mercy petitions of my own to the Goddess herself to see if she had some bandwidth available for a favorable judgement. As we drew closer, my faith in a divine intervention started taking some big leaps. We finally arrived at the station 10 minutes prior to the train's departure. Since we were squeezed for time, we took a chance by not buying the platform ticket, and hurried through the flight of stairs through platform No 16. Our train was parked on Platform No 14. We scampered towards our bogey A4 which was some distance from the flight of stairs we took on our way down. As soon as we reached our bogey, I instructed my driver to go and check underneath the berth we were assigned, but before he could hop on I asked him to wait as my glance fell on a bespectacled stocky figure perhaps in his mid 50s whose face looked very familiar. As I dug through my mnemonic graveyard, this face resurrected with lot more clarity. I approached him and queried - Aren't you the same guy who was on duty on this train that arrived Delhi this morning?. He looked puzzled but responded with a muffled "yes I am the Coach Attendant" after a slight pause. So I hastily inquired - "Did you come across a luggage bag underneath berth No 37, I had a bunch of shoes in them?" - hoping that parting with such details would ensure credibility of the questioner (however to lend more credibility to my own claims I had already lapped up on my train tickets too just in case). The reply that came back next threw me in fits of bewildered delirium - "Yes I found them and had kept them with me in the closet" and immediately rushed to take them out and handed it to me. He also narrated some previous tale of someone leaving their mobile phone behind and how this guy had kept it secure in his possession and waited for several hours before the owner showed up. This was unprecedented - heart stirring tales of honesty - stuff you only hear in legends. With a pinch of courage, teaspoon of faith and a glass of honesty my delicious "Miracle Shake" was ready to gulp it all down.
Totally overwhelmed and mouth-agape dazed in astonishment that souls like him are still gracing the confines of this world, my gratitude exploded with a cavalcade of choicest encomiums and heartfelt wishes. Still in awe of this conscientious soul I told him that noble gestures such as these will go a long way in escorting him to higher positions of merit and morality and that such deeds find special entries in God's account registers with meritorious compensations of their own. Merely thanking him did not merit the greater gesture and while some can argue it was his duty to safeguard lost items in his jurisdiction, I still felt a pressing need to hand him some monies and so handed him couple of hundred bucks. My bleeding emotions at that point were still uncontrollable and so with ambitious thoughts anchored within, I took down his name, rank and his cell number in an effort to reach out to my own relatives/friends in the Indian Railways at higher positions who can do something meaningful for this unscrupulous coach attendant. Rarely have I indulged in such protracted farewell with strangers but this one deserved every second of it.
Anyways with an obvious grin on my face and feeling of great relief, we headed back with an unrestrained urge to surprise the naysayers back home who had written this miracle off in the first place. But then I don't blame them who would not have?
As our train Rajdhani Express neared Delhi station only an hour behind schedule on a sun-baked dawn of 18th Feb, our moods found their much-needed alibis to stay perked up and our steps their much needed spring. The local porters had already jumped inside the bogey to scavenge on their willing preys as the train came to a final halt. One of them tag teamed us and got stuck into our luggage. He asked me to wait on the platform as he would assemble all the luggage there. The driver who came to pick us up completed the sanity-check formalities of sneaking under the seats to make sure none of the personal belonging was being left back for charity. Anyways after much rate haggling with one of the porters, we marched off the train station into the Ajmeri Gate VIP parking. Mother and sister were slow of the blocks and took little longer. After kissing goodbyes with the pesky porters, we finally headed back to our destination in Noida.
When I got home everything appeared normal until an hour later a realization of a missing luggage literally swamped me with a horrendous surge of repentance and guilt. Obviously the missing luggage contained my dearest shoes from abroad and a few pairs of them that would now cost a plenty to buy again. I went into a mini-depression of sorts and started vetting all possible excuses to find an unlikely scapegoat whom I can pass on the baton of guilt. How in the world did the driver miss out on that piece esp when he did his due diligence. Why did not my sis look underneath the seat - after all she was the occupant of the lower berth seat esp when I was watching the luggage on the platform. I was still mad at the driver for his slapdash diligence and wanted to teach him a lesson so I called him and told him, be ready for a trip to the station in the evening as we will try and catch this train on its way back and see if we can find that luggage. Such bogus train of thoughts appeared stuck in a traffic jam inside my jittery panicky mind.
While I was jostling with this traffic snarl, everyone around jumped on the consoling wagon that there was no point repenting and that by now the ragamuffins would have rummaged it out of its resting place and fled to their merrier pastures, and that there is nothing we can do now. Even if the rag-pickers were restricted entry since this was a premium train, the local caterers and coach attendants would have jumped on it at the first sighting and shipped it out to the local thief markets. And if by some tango of fate, such possibilities got evaded, the train would have retired to the loco-shed yards for sanitation proceedings and there was no point rushing back to the station. With a sense of resignation and sinking heart I began accepting the inevitable that those shoes were history and by now possibly have already been accorded their own state funeral. Ouch!!
While I was still miffed at this tragic loss and cursing myself for such carelessness in the hours that followed, I also started feeling some faint inner signals although not quite tuned in, goading me to give a 1% chance of a shot in the dark. I quickly brushed it aside as asinine and continued to curse myself some more. I then tried to shake this all of with some sleep and I did sleep some. The driver called around 4ish if I was still game for a trip back to the train station. By then any hopes of reclaiming the missing piece appeared to have dissolved in my dreams itself and my proclivity felt more subservient to my slumberous orientations I was already languishing in rather than a road outing to the train station with a p factor of 0.01. Hell yeah sleep it is. But then I checked with my mom whether I should give it a shot and appraised her of my own inner vibes that were earlier patting me to give it a try, she gave a resounding yes for a go ahead.
Lately when I embark on a long journey I have eased into this habit of reciting Durga Kavach which is like a shield that supposed to protect you from all quarters. So another feeling that had cropped up from some unknown recess of the subconscious at that very moment was that - in spite of this journey being blessed with such recital, the fate had preordained on the contrary and so how in the world did this happen. Betrothed to that my own inner vibes and my mother's response in the affirmative, I opted for the road trip to the train station. The driver was in splits at the prospect of even a slightest chance of recovery and was taking potshots on me through some aliases who happened to be other drivers who had guffawed at him for even thinking the impossible. I ignored his jibes and started launching mercy petitions of my own to the Goddess herself to see if she had some bandwidth available for a favorable judgement. As we drew closer, my faith in a divine intervention started taking some big leaps. We finally arrived at the station 10 minutes prior to the train's departure. Since we were squeezed for time, we took a chance by not buying the platform ticket, and hurried through the flight of stairs through platform No 16. Our train was parked on Platform No 14. We scampered towards our bogey A4 which was some distance from the flight of stairs we took on our way down. As soon as we reached our bogey, I instructed my driver to go and check underneath the berth we were assigned, but before he could hop on I asked him to wait as my glance fell on a bespectacled stocky figure perhaps in his mid 50s whose face looked very familiar. As I dug through my mnemonic graveyard, this face resurrected with lot more clarity. I approached him and queried - Aren't you the same guy who was on duty on this train that arrived Delhi this morning?. He looked puzzled but responded with a muffled "yes I am the Coach Attendant" after a slight pause. So I hastily inquired - "Did you come across a luggage bag underneath berth No 37, I had a bunch of shoes in them?" - hoping that parting with such details would ensure credibility of the questioner (however to lend more credibility to my own claims I had already lapped up on my train tickets too just in case). The reply that came back next threw me in fits of bewildered delirium - "Yes I found them and had kept them with me in the closet" and immediately rushed to take them out and handed it to me. He also narrated some previous tale of someone leaving their mobile phone behind and how this guy had kept it secure in his possession and waited for several hours before the owner showed up. This was unprecedented - heart stirring tales of honesty - stuff you only hear in legends. With a pinch of courage, teaspoon of faith and a glass of honesty my delicious "Miracle Shake" was ready to gulp it all down.
Totally overwhelmed and mouth-agape dazed in astonishment that souls like him are still gracing the confines of this world, my gratitude exploded with a cavalcade of choicest encomiums and heartfelt wishes. Still in awe of this conscientious soul I told him that noble gestures such as these will go a long way in escorting him to higher positions of merit and morality and that such deeds find special entries in God's account registers with meritorious compensations of their own. Merely thanking him did not merit the greater gesture and while some can argue it was his duty to safeguard lost items in his jurisdiction, I still felt a pressing need to hand him some monies and so handed him couple of hundred bucks. My bleeding emotions at that point were still uncontrollable and so with ambitious thoughts anchored within, I took down his name, rank and his cell number in an effort to reach out to my own relatives/friends in the Indian Railways at higher positions who can do something meaningful for this unscrupulous coach attendant. Rarely have I indulged in such protracted farewell with strangers but this one deserved every second of it.
Anyways with an obvious grin on my face and feeling of great relief, we headed back with an unrestrained urge to surprise the naysayers back home who had written this miracle off in the first place. But then I don't blame them who would not have?
