Losing my Phone (Phone Churi)  11.1.15                                                     

Blissfully going to Parnasree on a blue and white ‘no refusal’ taxi. Was talking to Swaraj da just before that, he told me that my article had been accepted/or was going to be published in the February Holy Mother Special Issue of the RKM bulletin. I was happy. He had said that he had felt bad that he had not spoken to me very nicely when I had called the other day and that he felt sad about it.

But I should not have searched in my bag for the phone when it rang as I walked from home to the taxi stand around 10.15 in the morning of last Sunday. I was very tired, and somewhat nervy and it would be great to have just stayed home and recuperated; 

So somewhat shaken and not quite with it, I walked in a sea green kameez and white salwar, with the blueberry color jacket given by Priya, to the taxi stand, and still on the phone.

The blue and white taxi said that it would go. I had Geraldine Forbes’s Women in  Modern India, with me. It is that book that caused my fall that day. I hesitated to take it before I left, it seemed to invite me from the bed, I came back to the room (after having made steps to leave it), and took it downstairs. I went down to eat. On the point of leaving  the bag I was carrying with me, in addition to my purse, seemed very full (because I had put priya’s new lotion in  it, with the faint hope that I would apply lotion at Parnasree), and I did not want to stretch my Shantiniketan-y carrying bag, so I took the book in my hand. BIG MISTAKE.

Then the Swaraj- da, call. As I spoke to the taxi driver and asked him if he would go to Parnasree, he said ‘ yes’, a young, perhaps Bihari, driver. I had the book in my right hand. What I did not remember, is that I had the phone as well. I put the book next to me and then the phone. When I got off, I took the Forbes book, not only because I valued it, but also because it was an MRP book. I forgot the phone.

I went up and within 15 minutes thought of calling Deepa and asking her that if she was at Parnasree, she could come to my house. The bag, that is the purse, was overturned and phone not found. A frantic rush to the neighbour’s flat upstairs, and Mona’s husband gave me his phone from which to call. My number was called and the voice said ‘switched off.’ The bearded muslim older relative who was in the flat , said that if I could get another no refusal taxi, they could direct me to their headquarters in Jagu bazar and that they might be able to help me.

As I walked sadly and in a state of flurry to the police station, I did meet such a car, but the driver was completely indifferent to my situation. I arrived at the police station, and the lady police first asked me, if I had noted the car number, I said no. then she asked me for the IMEI number of the phone. I had no clue what that might be. I was already shaken and I said to her in strong tones, ‘you expect me to go to New Alipur now, and get that number’? Then she gave me a yarn about how the GD would require that number and then it would go to Lalbazar, etc. To whatever I understood of that, I said that you now want me to go to Lalbazar to trace a phone that was 3.5 years old? I should have just stuck with the demand that they make a note of the number of this phone 9831775725.

But I too allowed myself to get caught in circles and circles of discussion, with various police officers or SI’s. None of them would accept my contention that it was ‘stolen’. They said, ‘you have misplaced it’. Of course, not in proper English. They insisted on ‘misplaced’ and I on ‘stolen’. I said, but if he (taxi driver) did not want to steal it, why should he switch the phone off? One guy, who had done me the courtesy of listening to my story, got up at this point, said to me, ‘ amader bidya buddhi khub kom; amra eta misplaced bole jani. Sheta je stolen hote pare, ta bujhina.’ then he walked up to the junior police, woman, inspector and told her summarily, ‘just write her number down. make a report with just that detail. No need to write anything else down.’

By that time, I said that I would get the bill. The woman inspector kept telling me ‘apnake to kotobar bollam.’ Then I said, ‘what is point of saying all this? What does it matter? When someone does something wrong and then wishes to rectify the mistake, do you keep saying, kotobar bollam?

Went back to 318 Parnasree Pally, hurriedly ate the ordered meal from Gopa Chakladar, rushed home in a taxi, took the airtel post paid bill and went back in the same taxi. Noticed on the way that the taxi driver smiled and talked to himself.

 When I eventually arrived, a senior superintendent, overall kind, who had previously heard remonstrations from the woman superintendent, about how recalcitrant I was, kindly tried to explain to me how they did not have scanners that would trap if my phone was being used. Initially, I had asked them in sheer helplessness, if it was not possible for them to do anything without the IMIE number, if I gave them the time of the taxi ride and from where and to where it had been. This had been two hours ago from the present moment of narration.

He looked at my Airtel post paid bill with a great deal of attention. And then said, but we need the bill of purchase. I looked at him tired and dejected and said, I had not kept the bill of a  phone purchased 3.5 years earlier. He said that he had kept his even if it was 8 years old. They explained like they were explaining to an eight year old.  

That is why I think it is a sin to think one self intelligent. In a police station, unless you are prepared to be very patient and submissive, your intelligence will hold no value.

Came back at the end of the day to New Alipur. Had a plan of meeting Shelley in the park. Don’t know why I had  agreed in the first place.  At this age, and given my style, a park is not where I would meet someone. Sat there for 15 minutes, felt the cold penetrating my body and then walked home. My mother said that Shelley had found my phone switched off, had called home and Ma asked her not to go and meet me. I had kept the appointed hour, because I had not told Shelley anything. Since I had not been able to get in touch with her, I had gone exactly at 5 in the evening, when we were supposed to meet.