The Story Of A Cell Phone

Place: Sardar Patel Road.
Time: 7 pm.
Event: Disaster

What should have been a casual walk to the store and back turned into a nightmare which would haunt me for years to come. Here is the scenario. Traffic Signal. Fat Policemen. Overcast skies. Mushy earth. Stagnated Water. Mosquitoes. My task was to get Thaayar Dosa Maavu and I had a couple of library books to return. I cross the road. I check my pocket for the cell phone. It is there. I go past a hotel, past the juice shop , reach the place, jump over the chains put up there and go underground. That's where the library is. I returned the books and couldn't resist getting some more. I pay. I check my pocket for the cell phone. It is there. I go up. The thunderclouds had opened up. It is raining. Heavily. I check my pocket for the cell phone. It is there. I jump over the chains again and use the books to cover me. I look at the sky. It shows no signs of stopping. My impatience tells me to run. I check my pocket for the cell phone. It is there. I step into the rain. I start running. I jump over the black liquefied earth. I stop after few yards. I check my pocket for the cell phone. It is not there.

My heart stops. This is where everything starts to move in painfully slow motion. I am not yet hit by the impact that my phone is missing. This usually happens and I find it deep inside my pocket. I search. And search. It is not there. I look back. I run back to the place I knew I had it. It was just a few yards. It is not there. I rush back and forth, the library books hardly clinging onto my hand. I go frantic. I ask a complete stranger for his cell to call mine. I call my mobile. It rings. Someone picks up. And then it gets cut. Just like that. That is when, deep inside me I knew it was gone. Some filthy thief had pocketed it. I ring again. I run the with the phone listening for my ringtone. The guy who lent me the phone starts running after me thinking I am escaping with his phone. I am literally shaking with fear and terror. I give the phone back to him. Half of me kept saying that this is a dream, the other half said that the phone was gone. A tiny bit in me believed that was there, somewhere lying to be retrieved. I go asking random people if they had seen my cell phone though I knew there is no point. I ask the vegetable guy, the flower woman, the clothes shop guy, a random walker, the library guy, some workers digging there and then back to the vegetable guy and so on for like half an hour. I ask random guys' cell phones and call my phone. Few minutes later, "The Vodafone Number you are trying to reach is currently switched off". Game Over. The thief, whoever it was, had tossed the sim into the drainage. I look up in defeat. It stopped raining. I go to the store I was supposed to go. I use the phone there to call my phone one last time. I swear at the recorded message. My full self then realizes it was gone. It was no Blackberry or iPhone but yet, it had unique memories. I call home. I tell them. I get the Thaayar Maavu. I recover the sim card from Vodafone store. I walk home. Sad, sad story. The library books had gotten considerably wet.