I had drafted a nice post with juicy tit bits and startling revelations lined up and then kabooommm! This happened. I decided that the gossip post could wait and this rather real life incident deserved to be narrated. I shall stick to the facts here.
Disclaimer: All incidents and characters in this story are real. Any resemlance to any one dead or unreal is purely co incidental.
Yes you read that right. Now shall we move on to the actual narration.
Monday morning : Home : 830 AM
Maaa… Pls ma… don’t scold me early in the morning first day of the week.. pwweesss… I mumbled sleepily.. Mom stormed into the room.. broom in hand.. Its about time you get some sense into that head of yours. Do you realize what time is it? Why cant you ever stick to a routine properly.. Go to bed on time.. Get up on time.. Makes life a lot easier for all of us you know… She boomed.. But Ma.. I squealed.. and then realized that Ajju was also not up yet. Dang.. No wonder mom had hit one of her foul moods. Last night was one big rollicking night.. The high of making it to a biz quiz final was just too much to sleep off at usual time. Group chat.. chat and more chat… later i reluctantly went to bed at midnight.. [RT 
you know what I am talking about dont you?? ]
I smiled to myself and slowly climbed out of the bed. A whirlwind of half hour later I was ready for office. Mom meanwhile was still grumbling. She packed some breakfast for me to eat on the way. I wore a nice white salwar [one of my favorites] and hauled up the lappie in a back pack. Armed with my regular handbag in one shoulder and the kutti tiffin bag in the other, off I went to the railway station. [FYI: I use the suburban train in Chennai to commute to my office everyday].
A train left just as I was slowly making my way down the crowded staircase. So I ended up waiting for the next train. Meanwhile I called up Pridi and talked to her at length about my weekend and hers… [ * No no.. Don't glare at me just yet. You'd know how this saved my day later on.] The train came.. I got into it and continued the conversation.. We had just toooo much to catch up on. The train then dumped me off in Guindy. The day was just beginning to get worse. I ended up waiting for almost 45 mins in Guindy bus stop. And then finally a bus showed up and I reached office at around 11.
I was just settling down in office with my bag and baggage. Setting things up and all.. A msg popped up in my mobile. It was from dad. It read:
” Your purse found by AAAA. 1233456777 “
I was amused. Yes.. Out of the blue, dad sending such a msg was funny, if not anything else. Smiling I rummaged through my bag, only to find that my purse wasn’t in there.. OH no.. shoot.. I hurriedly called up the number in the msg from my office phone. The voice at the other end belonged to a man who calmly explained that he had found my purse and there was no money in it. And that he also found my dad’s business card in it so he called up my dad and informed him. [I silently thanked my Dad for showing off his new business card. He'd given each one of us a card and I had kept it in my purse. Thankfully. ]
I asked him where exactly he found the purse. He said it was lying in the railway track in Mount station. I get off just one station before. It was lying there open for sometime. He picked it up. But there was no money in it and that there were just a couple cards in it that were intact and some loose change. Meanwhile dad called my mobile.Since I was talking to this person, I didnt pick dad’s call. His description of the purse was fairly accurate. I thanked him profusely and told him I’d call him back and inform him when and where I’d pick it up. My heart was threatening to pop out of my mouth.
I ddin’t have much cash in the purse. A crisp 10 Rs note and a crisp 5 Rs note. I had spent most of the money I had over the weekend and was left with just 100 bucks. Instead of keeping the money in the purse I’d just loosely kept it in my bag. And that day I was carrying every single card that I own. Only .. they weren’t in my purse. The 2 “cards” in the purse were a membership card to Titan and a gift card from SBI which had close to 1 grand left in it. I hurriedly checked my bag and found the cards and cash intact. And no blade/ tear marks in the bag also which meant that the bag had been opened and the purse was taken. Realization dawned very late. The train was pretty crowded and there were people around me all the time. Only lady was constantly maintaining eye contact or rather staring at me. Gawd.
I called home but mom’d gone to grandpa’s house. So filled Ajju up on all the details and told him to keep his mouth shut until someone else told him about it. An instant later I called uncle and updated him of the proceedings. After giving me an earful about generally how careless I am and how I should keep my eyes open while on train etc, Uncle, who thankfully lives near this AAAA’s office offered to pick up the pruse from his office. Phew that was close.
Mom was trying to reach me at he same time and since I was on the phone with Uncle, I thought I’d call her back. But man.. When I called her the next instant in mom spoke in a trembling voice. She asked me first if I was alright and if my phone was indeed with me. She then went on to ask if my cards were ok as the man who’d found the purse had informed dad that there were 2 cards in it. . All this in extremely hushed tone. I explained to her that all was well and a grand sum of R.s 15 was missing. All important cards and other stuff including me were absolutely intact. As I mouthed these words a shiver ran down my spine and I lost all my calm composure.
She told me how Daddy dearest had panicked and in turn had scared her as well. Since I’d not picked his call he assumed that my phone was also taken and I was in trouble. [Now is where the * comes into the picture. Had I not been on the phone it might have been taken also. No I am not taking any other explanation ] She asked me to call him assure him that all was well. I promptly call dad and could sense from his voice how panicked he had been. I spoke to him for a few seconds and then hung up.
My hands were shaking. I was terrified. It scared the living day lights out of me. Why? Usually the beginning of the month is when the purse is fully loaded. It was by divine intervention or sheer dumb luck that the purse was relatively empty that day. When I broke the news to my friends, they all managed to make a joke out of it saying my purse would always be empty irrespective of the day. And that the person had wasted a lot of time and effort in picking it in the first place. Some one else said, that I should check the purse thoroughly when I got it back as the person could have left some money in it and a note saying which might say, “Please keep some more cash in it the next time around so that the efforts of people like us does not go down the drain”. Lol.. Indeed. And then one said, “Cover your face while going back home. The person might still be waiting in Guindy railway station for some revenge. ” Lol revenge indeed!
Thanks to all this my breakfast lay forgotten and the story was promptly repeated at the lunch table amidst some more wise cracks and laughs. At around 2, uncle called up to inform that he’d picked up the purse from that person and that he’d give it to me the next day! When I reached home, mom gave me a bigg hug for the trauma that I went through and I quipped, had you not screamed at me this morning none of this would have happened. She gave me a “yeah right” look and went about dinner. And thus ended a maniacal Monday!
When the purse came back to me, I had a strange feeling. My eyes moistened a bit as I opened it and found all the contents there.. For some strange reason, the pictures of various Gods I had kept inside the purse, memorabilia from trips to various temples seemed to smile back at me! The purse has been lying in the Pooja Room for the last week. I promptly gave mom all my cards and carry only 20 bucks on me each day!
Moral of the story: Moms shouldnt scream at children ! 
