“Aashi! Mera bag kahaan hai ?!”
Never have we ever thought of a day so horrible yet so satisfying. You might know the end but anyways, let me take you to what actually happened today.
A not so perfect start to a valentine’s day it was, as I already got late for the very first class of this semester, along with my squad, as they were waiting for me to reach that common station for past 30 minutes. It was comparatively a strict teacher’s class but we somehow managed to enter, for this particular time as our luck would have it, otherwise we were sure we won’t be getting entry to this particular class for obvious reasons. It was a bad morning indeed, as soon as we settled and started writing notes, I got a warning straight to my face to ‘not to bring laptop’ from now onwards, as I was the only one typing. (You know how does it feel when that one teacher keeps on pointing you out and you basically struggle to not to spoil her mood anymore but it just happens out of nowhere). Finally things were normal, we’d planned to visit a few places to shoot a documentary as our assignment (yes, there are perks of being a journalism student but…let’s stick to the story). We left for Chattarpur metro from our college straight, for we were going to visit 2 major locations which was Mehrauli Archaeological Park being the first and Qila Raipithora, the other one (which were both according to us closest to Qutub minar metro station). It was a walk of approx. 14 minutes from Qutub Minar metro, and we continued our journey. I was the director, cameraman, spot dada or every other role I could assign to myself. I shot every thing on my phone, every small detail as it was our first trip together, and I had to preserve it. Though the destination was not upto our expectations but with friends like them the time was worth wasting for. We finally decided to head towards our next destination for the day and fortunately found a genuine-gracious auto driver, as the second location was a bit far from the first one. He literally explained everything about the place, the dos and don’ts, and was in no time able to convince all six of us to visit ‘Champa Gali’ instead of what we’d decided. We sat with him and one of our inquisitive friend as usual initiated the conversation with Auto wale bhaiya. Bhaiya was not only a good communicator as we already saw, but also he was a patient listener. He really did listen to us and talked his heart out, he told us how he, along with his family, suffered in the second wave of covid, but he kept on doing what his job was. I was recording it, as I was still in my “Director character”. (a small clip of our auto ride, how adjustingly, the six of us were sitting in just one auto and were enjoying the company of our newly found friend — Auto wale Bhaiya)
“Bhaai, bag utaar le apna gir jayega” Aashi said to me. I gave it to her ignoring everything as I was so engaged in what Bhaiya was talking. And in no time we reached Champa Gali, I again started my camera, shot a few cafes and all of a sudden found that I don’t have my laptop bag on my back! “FUCK!” I screamed in my head first, and then looking at them, I shouted, “Aashi! Mera bag kahaan hai ?!”, and all five of them at one glance looked at me. We rushed towards the route we just came from to look for that auto which was now impossible to find. We were clueless. I was nil and impatiently blaming Aashi as she was the one who made me unload my bag (I never usually takes it off but today unfortunately I did). We were wandering from one auto driver to another, in search of that one auto, but without any clue. Geetanjali advised to split in two teams of three, and we did as she said. I was so freaked it wasn’t even my laptop but my father’s boss’s. (now you know how would I be feeling)
Geetanjali told me not to lose hope but how could I ? And suddenly Sammy recalled, that we recorded bhaiya’s voice (as he was discussing his problems, being a journalism student we thought it will help us in our assignment so we did record his audio) in which he mentioned his name as a Rajesh or Brijesh. (due to the background noises it couldn’t be heard properly) But now we at least had a clue to his name. Three of us got back to the place he dropped us. From the nearby cafes we asked for help if they could just allow us to see the CCTV footage so that we could at least find the auto number. There were nearly 8 cameras of different cafes yet not a single one of them could be accessed. All the cafe owners did come up for our help on just one call but some due to technical issues while some due to unavailability of the person who’d handle the CCTV monitors were unable to do anything. Sammy and the other two, in the mean time reached from where we took that auto, all three of them were jumping through hoops to get my laptop bag back.
I lost all the hope. I was broken, panicked, and nil at the same time. I couldn’t decide what should I do. Should I not go home or should I tell my parents the truth? How could I? It was not even mine. Our only hope was bhaiya’s nature which we judged in just one 10 minutes auto ride. We were still in a hope that as soon as he’ll see the bag he’ll come back to return it. But the question was when will he? We didn’t have much time left, it was already 4 PM, soon it would be dark and our homes were really far. Constantly all of us were whispering prayers in our heads. And all of a sudden….
I recalled I even made a short clip of us, and showed it to Geetanjali if someone from the auto stand could recognize him through this clip. Though it was useless, as it only covered bhaiya’s eyes through the rear view mirror but we still tried and showed the clip to the nearest auto driver standing, and his reaction came as a bolt from the blue! “Ye to Brijesh lag ra hai..” he said. Then came another guy, with a not so pleasing attitude, but really interested in the discussion, who asked me to show the clip to him. And he confirmed he was Brijesh. He was Monu bhaiya, the true savior of the day. (one of the man from the nearby cafe) None of us were expecting it but out of the blue, he had Brijesh bhaiya’s number, he called him right away and told him to check the backseat of his auto, and there it was! ‘The Laptop Bag’
That one sentence, That one assurance took the breath right out of my body! And I thanked everyone standing there with my hands folded and my eyes moist. Aashi having a sensitive heart now started crying for she thought it was all her fault and she made all of us run like that. But the one who took the very right decisions of the day, Geetanjali, calmed her down. I also apologized to her for blaming her without a thought.
Everyone literally was standing in that particular street, all six of us, Monu bhaiya, Cafe owners we asked for help, some auto drivers too, waiting for Brijesh bhaiya to come. Some of them left, but Monu bhaiya stood still along with us, though none of us honestly noticed it. But as soon as Brijesh bhaiya came, he went back to his cafe saying, “ab mai ja ra hu mil gaya bag aapka”. Before we could formally thank him, he left. We paid Brijesh bhaiya for he had come back all the way from Tughlakabad after dropping his passengers, and thanked him for coming back for us.
And finally we wanted to specially thank Monu bhaiya, so we went to his Red Bricks Cafe, this was the least we could do, to promote his cafe.
DO VISIT MONU BHAIYA’S RED BRICKS CAFE @ CHAMPA GALI!
For the very first time I was happy that I’m a journalism student. And on a serious note (as per ma’am’s advice) I’ll stop bringing laptop, if it’s this horrifying! By God’s grace it ended on a good note, and because of the people I had with me today!
“A big thanks to all my saviors today and always! I could have never done it without you guys!”
Gratitude!
