Category: Incident

Phone: Lost and Found

~ Akshay ~ 6 Comments

Yeah. I know I know. I am posting after quite a long time (15 days since last post). To be honest, too many things have happened in my life since I last posted. I will write about them soon. I promise.

A couple of days ago, I was waiting at the Mumbai Central station waiting to catch the train back home. A Virar train had just entered into the station and after the mad scramble to get in the train got over, the train started moving. As the ladies compartment neared, a girl standing on the footboard lost her grip on her cell phone and it dropped on the station, sliding and landing right near my feet. A few onlookers were looking as I picked up the phone and I didn’t know what I should do with it. The phone was Samsung and must have cost around 5-7K. A couple of fellow passengers suggested I give the phone to local police men who are nowadays found on every platform. I decided to hand it over to the cops.

While walking with the phone one part of me really didnt want to return the phone, since I had lost a couple of phones and they had never been returned. I was like it is payback time. While thinking about this, I also realized how sad I had felt when I lost my phones and how this person might be feeling. What she must be going through, the nervousness, the fear and the hope that someone might return the phone back to her. I decided to do the right thing and decided to hand over the phone to her. I called a couple of people from her contact list and gave them my details, so they could get in touch with her and she could retrieve her phone.

After waiting for her to call on her cell for about 15 mins, I decided to board the train and head home. So when I had just boarded, her brother called and in a very accusatory tone asked me “This phone is with you”. At that very moment I felt like throwing the phone from the window. Bugger, here I am trying to return your sisters lost phone and you are accusing me of stealing the phone. I asked him to collect the phone from Borivali since I have already boarded the train and have no intentions to get down and make my journey more uncomfortable. After speaking with her brother, the owner of the cell phone called and said she was at Bandra and would appreciate it if I can get down and hand it over to her there. I agreed after much deliberation.

I got down at Bandra and located her and gave her the phone. It turns out she was working for Lufthansa Airlines ground crew. The relief and joy on her face was quite watchable. She thanked me and I moved on. The funny part was even after losing her phone once, she decided to travel on the footboard of the train, the way she lost it initially. I just looked up.. sighed and boarded a very crowded train to home.

Moral of the story: Nice guys always get crushed.

Interesting Monday

~ Akshay ~ 3 Comments

I have been itching to write this post since Monday morning, but I just havent had the time to sit and write it. This past Monday wasn’t like all other Mondays. In fact when I woke up in the morning, I could somehow feel it was going to be different. May be anticipation of the coming holidays made me feel that way or something else, I dont know. So I left my house a little later than usual in the morning and was thinking if I should take the bus or the train. Since I was traveling to Chembur that day, I didn’t really want to change two trains and get there. I thought since it is almost a holiday, I might as well take the bus to Kurla and then hop onto the train.

I waited at the bus stop for like 20 mins and every minute while I waited there, I felt like “I should have taken the train, may be I will catch the 8:20 AM local, if I leave now.” Finally the bus arrived and luckily it wasn’t so crowded. I got a seat and was thinking the wait was worth it. As anticipated, there wasn’t much traffic on the WE highway and I was at Bail Bazaar on Andheri-Kurla Road around 9:30-9:35am. Then the bus came to a standstill. Since I had traveled on this road before, I knew the traffic gets really bad here. After 5-10 mins the bus was still not moving, the traffic from the opposite direction had also stopped, as in there were no vehicles going. Also in the mean time, a steady stream of people were heading in just one direction emphasizing that something was going on ahead. I decided to sit in the bus and wait out whatever was going on, but then I saw people who were standing ahead running helter-skelter. I was like this does not look good. I decided to step down from the bus, in case the mob turns angry and decides to break the bus.

I started walking in direction where all action was taking place. On reaching there, I saw a double decker BEST bus standing in the middle of the road, it looked empty to me. There was a police van standing near it and a lot of cops standing around the bus. Behind the cops, there were people, who had formed a circle. I tried to go on the other side of the circle, but the people and then the cops wont allow me to. I asked some folks as to what was going on, they couldn’t provide me with a clear answer. Just then I heard a couple of shots being fired. I thought it was must be some Diwali cracker, but I saw people running and definitely realized it was a shot. I decided to get away from there, since I didn’t want to get crushed in a stampede which could have occurred. I moved into a small lane and started asking for directions to get to Kurla. After walking for about 45 mins and asking at least half dozen people + 2 cops for directions, I finally reached the Kurla station only to realize that the trains were running 20-25 mins late. Kurla station was a sea of humanity. I decided to skip the first train that arrived and boarded the next one with some ease. After about 3 hours since I had left home, I managed to reach office.

For what happened at the Double Decker bus click here.