Pain of losing things and the joy of finding

Losing things, especially our precious belongings, is a pain we have all experienced. Yet, the joy of finding the lost stuff is a feeling that remains hard to describe.

Keys, handkerchiefs and umbrellas are the things we lose with amazing regularity. It is extremely stressful to lose your keys and phone. Today, a phone is a storehouse of our contacts, acting as our link to the world. In additional to the financial pain of replacing the lost phone, one has to deal with the stress of reconstructing the contact list.

Losing or misplacing keys creates another major problem. During my student days at university, I had the habit of locking up each and everything. So, quite naturally, I had a bunch of keys that were very precious to me. Once, on returning to my hostel from my home, I discovered - to my horror - that I was not carrying the bunch of keys. I broke into tears at the thought of undergoing the tedious and cumbersome procedure of breaking all those locks. To my relief, my parents called up to let me know that the bunch of keys was at home. Finally, I got them through a classmate from my hometown, who was to come to hostel the next day.

For a day, however, I had to bear the inconvenience of not being able to access my own stuff in almirahs and trunks.

Loss of gold is considered inauspicious.

Once, my mother lost a gold earning in my ancestral village. All daughters-in-law were made to search for it, and when one of them found it, my overjoyed father gave Rs 500 to each of them, bringing smiles to their faces.

My daughter, often, mispla- ces stuff and goes on to create a ruckus. I tell her to take a deep breath and think of something else, advising her that at home, things are rarely lost. Usually, things get buried under a pile of clothes or are tagged with junk. Sooner or later, she finds her stuff, experiencing immense pleasure.

A couple of years ago, I lost a cap at a phone booth in Ludhiana; mobiles were not ubiquitous then. I was mournful; imagine my joy when I happened to be at the same booth two weeks later to get the cap back from the kind shop keeper. Yet, two weeks later, I lost the same cap in college. This time, it was lost for good.

This taught me that losing things and getting them back, only to lose them again, is a vicious cycle that carries on, forever. A few days ago, I went to a chemist to buy some medicines, the names of which I had jotted down on the back of a diary. In that diary, I used to note meanings of difficult words. It was my personal

mini-dictionary. And, as you would expect, I left it there and it has not been relocated yet.

I was really anguished at the loss of pages that had so much knowledge. I got myself a new diary and started all over again to fill it with wisdom and knowledge. I feel it is a loss that I can now regain twice over – with more reading and writing.

LOSING PRECIOUS BELONGINGS AND GETTING THEM BACK, ONLY TO LOSE THEM AGAIN, IS A CYCLE THAT GOES ON, FOREVER