Car keys and I don’t go together. In fact keys and I don’t go
together. I can also add that wallet, and cash and hair bands and safety
pins and buttons and umbrellas and all that paraphernalia and I, don't
go together. We constantly elude each other. We like to play hide and
seek. We have a distant relationship. It is some conspiracy of nature,
some joke of God, or some repulsive magnetic field thing. Or wait, maybe
it’s simply that my mind likes to ponder about bigger things. The higher stuff. Alright,
enough of blah. The truth is that I am absent minded and I agree.
Here is something that has often happened with me. I come home with some really important document or key or gadget or anything like that. Of course, my extremely careful self puts that thing in some real safe and logical reasonable place. And then after that my mind forgets about it completely. Now, after a few days or months, the time for fruition comes when that
very treasure needs to be retrieved. And the search begins. And ends with the thing nowhere in sight. And then as days pass and one
fine evening, I am looking for something else I find my old treasure (it is
accompanied by a small private moment of pride and appreciation on what a fine place I had kept it in).
Like
it happened last time when I was on my India trip this winter. I
had taken my winter jacket and was wearing and flaunting it most of the
time. Winters are pretty cold in Delhi although they are nothing
compared to US. Anyways, so I was wearing the jacket often. One of those times I noticed that the button on the top front side was loose.
I immediately removed it and kept it in a safe place waiting to fix it sometime later. Incidentally, the next few days were warmer and I did
not have to wear the jacket. Then one day it became very cold again and I
took out my jacket suddenly remembering that the button had come
off. Obviously it had to be fixed now before I put it on. I started to look around for the saved button. After looking around a lot I couldn't find any.
Anyways, I managed the winter there with some other jackets, shawls, pullovers. I knew however, that I was going to take this jacket back to US because
it was really a warm and nice one. So, with many more search operations (private
ones while faking to look for something else) and no success, I
reluctantly bought a whole new set of buttons and got them stitched onto
the jacket. Reluctant because the older buttons were really fashionable
and went very well with it and I did not find any new ones even nearly comparable in style or look. I eventually settled my mind for this new compromise.
Time
flew. Soon the trip ended and I was back in US. As I began to
unpack guess what happened? I found the lost button. It was in the handbag I had checked umpteen times before. How you ask? In a way it
was in the handbag but in a way it was not. Kind of like Hai bhi aur nahin bhi hai (I am suddenly reminded of the scene in the Bollywood movie Chupke Chupke,
where Amitabh is trying to tell Jaya how Corolla is a flower and yet it
is not; something like that... that movie is my all time favorite by
the way). Let me unravel the mystery quick. So, it was inside that handbag, but it was inside a small purse inside the
handbag (kinda small pouch where I keep most of my important stuff
like, home keys, some jewelry, important receipts and all that). So,
when I searched, I searched in the main big handbag, but not in the bag inside the bag. You see? ... It is really sounding a bit like hai bhi and nahin bhi hai, isn't it? :)
So
now, I have the old jacket with the new buttons sewed onto it and the
old nicer buttons all safely tucked in some 'safe' place. And … do I know where? Umm... I 'll have to check with my mind and get back to you on that.
