It was the 28th of November 2016. At 10.00 pm, just two hours before the 29th of November, Harsh and I entered the gate of my building in Mumbai, in an auto rickshaw. We had just arrived from the airport. After a lovely, refreshing stay in my hometown, Bangalore, I was feeling extra smug, especially since it was going to be my Birthday in two hours. (Yay!)

Harsh had asked me a couple of times if I needed the driver to pick us up by car since we had a lot of luggage. I found that unnecessary and had insisted on simply taking an auto from outside the Airport. So we found an auto at the exit and Harsh excitedly gave the driver a salaam (salute) for we were in ‘amchi Mumbai’. The driver smiled and returned the gesture. Our names were taken down by an airport authority. We loaded our plump bags in. Two big suitcases, two carry-ons’ and a laptop bag with my laptop in it. All the bags fit in smugly with a little space at the back for the laptop to sit in. We squeezed ourselves in with smiles on our faces. We were home. It was soon going to be my birthday and Harsh had planned a whole day of surprises.

As we reached home, a series of events led to something totally unexpected. We entered the gate with the auto meter showing the numbers ‘108’, which is a holy denotation. I was immediately distracted. As we stopped the auto below our building, Harsh began to calculate how much extra money he could give the driver for carrying that much luggage in his vehicle without a fuss. As we got down, we saw this elderly couple waiting to get into the same auto. Harsh and I have a soft corner for elders and we immediately began to rush. I was about to remind Harsh about my laptop at the back when Chloe ran to me. Chloe is a beautiful Labrador Retriever in our building and her owner, Trupti, learns Kathak at my dance institution. I was further distracted and I began petting Chloe while talking to Trupti about our Bangalore trip.

Soon enough, Harsh joined us and we spoke for several minutes before I turned to look at the luggage and found the laptop missing. “Laptop?!” I said to Harsh and he looked at me, in complete terror. “Its still in the auto” he said and ran to the gate. The vehicle had definitely left. So we asked the watchman where the old couple who took the auto after us had come from. He said they were guests at ‘103’. We ran upstairs and asked for their number. I was in complete shock to even understand what was happening. We called the number and the couple said that the driver had just dropped them to their destination. Harsh and I looked at each other, tying to find answers in each others eyes. We ran downstairs once again, hoping that the driver came back to return the laptop bag. No, he hadn’t.

Trupti and the Watchman were standing downstairs, trying to find a solution. We realized that his number was taken down at the Airport. Harsh looked at me as though ‘Is it really worth the trouble?’. I said, out loud, “Please go and check.”

I took the luggage upstairs with the help of the watchman. I was shivering for some reason. The luggage came in. I closed the door; dropped my handbag on the floor, took off my slippers mid-way, rushed to my ‘Pooja space’ and fell on my knees. I cried very loudly, with my hands folded in a namaste, constantly saying “Please don’t do this.”

It was about 10.30 pm by this time.

I was suddenly reminded of how I was brought up. As a child, “non-living things” had absolutely no value in my home. Something broke? Fix it, or do without it. You lost something? Its okay, its gone…but be careful next time. My Fathers car was meant to carry five people? He has fit fifteen people in that poor thing, ‘coz people are always more important. If my Father was here, on the 28th of Nov, 2016, he would have simply brushed the whole thing aside. I heard his voice in my head and I tried my best to stop crying. I called Harsh and asked him to come back. “Its okay.” I said. “Forget it. Its gone.” I wasn’t too happy as I said these words. It felt “wrong”… like something “wrong” had happened.

You see, I function from a very intuitive place and every occurrence, good/bad/ugly, makes sense to me. I follow the rhythm of the Universe and it is fairly easy for me to understand why something happens. This, I just could not. Recently, about a month ago, the first five years of Nrityanidhi (data / videos / pictures), got lost; due to a technical issue and then due to a robbery at Buoyancee in Bangalore. I didn’t even flinch at the time. It didn’t matter. This laptop carried the next five years and somehow, I just couldn’t let go. I didn’t even understand why I was being forced to let go. A laptop which was in perfect condition, carrying only positive energy and thoughts of love, what was the reason for it to be taken away from me?!

When life takes you through a phase where things are constantly going wrong, or you aren’t in the best mood, awful things automatically happen and you understand how YOU brought that situation TO YOURSELF. Here, I had just returned from a splendid, fun-filled time at home, after a successful show, looking forward to my birthday, WHAT WITHIN ME HAD ATTRACTED THIS?

All these thoughts flooded my mind as I sat there on the floor crying my eyes out. Then I heard Harsh open the door with his keys; and it all came gushing out. A voice I have never heard within me before; a combination of helplessness and hopelessness. In retrospect, it seems like an out-of-body experience, for I am absolutely amazing with letting things go and moving on. “How could you do this???!!!” I screeched, with tears rolling down my cheeks. He looked at me, sprawled on the floor like a wounded kitten and I saw a pain in his eyes I have never seen before. With all my relationships I am perfect with dialing down my hurtful expressions, only so I don’t make the other feel worse than they already do. This time though, I was out of control. The thought of all my ten years of work getting deleted by some unknown person or worse, being misused somewhere, was making me mad. What added to this fear was an incorrigible confusion of why something so stupid could happen.

At this point, I must mention that both Harsh and I are extra, “E.X.T.R.A.” careful with all our belongings. I played and replayed that scene in my mind a zillion times and I actually saw how some “force” had worked in varied ways to distract us from the Laptop bag at the back of the auto. All the right people / thoughts / situations were created for us to think of a hundred other things except the Laptop at the back.

I must also mention that no, I didn’t have a backup of the data. I, for your kind information, am your quintessential “artist” with absolutely no practical / logical / technical sense of such things. Great lesson learnt. Still, this incident was in no way worthy of this lesson. I closed my eyes and prayed for my laptop to come back to me. I began to imagine all those people who lose so many, more precious things; their children even, who get kidnapped and what not. I began to feel worse. I tried consoling myself this way. ‘Look Shoma, there are worse things that happen with people. This is only a laptop.’ Didn’t help. Slowly, I even realized that I did have some data in CDs and pen-drives here and there. I could try to put things together. ‘Hey! A new laptop!? Wow!’

NO. NO and NO.

None of this helped. I was just feeling numb. It wasn’t just this electronic device with my pictures, videos, letters, and data. It was what it represented and the search for a justified reasoning to why this happened, right before my birthday.

When I’m juggling finances each month (read more here), why should I unnecessarily spend Thirty Thousand rupees on a new laptop? Not fair.

Harsh couldn’t help but leave to the Airport once again; this time, more willingly. My upbringing constantly kept interfering with my astray emotions and I wondered why letting go was seeming like an impossibility. ‘It is my birthday tomorrow and something as small as this shouldn’t interfere with my day’ I thought and gathered myself off of the floor to sit in a chair and change my passwords. Tears; they wouldn’t stop so I called Ashwini. I was sure she would help me feel better. No luck. In fact, she was surprised to find me this affected by something like this.

I had my phone on the silent mode. I knew calls would come in at 12.00 am and I was in no mood to talk to anyone.

It was exactly 00.00 on my phone. I just happened to look at the screen and Harsh was calling me. I picked up. “I’m in the police station” he said. “What company was your laptop from?” “Compaq” I said. (It wasn’t Compaq. My previous laptop was Compaq. You see, “technical gawar”). “Alright” he said and hung up. I smiled to myself. He probably didn’t even realize it was already my Birthday.

I took a shower and went to bed, hoping to wake up in a better mood with the Sunrise. The next morning felt like a humungous effort on my side to be happy. What is this pressure on a Birthday anyway?! One is “supposed” to be all happy and sprightly. Now, with something as irredeemable as what occurred last night, someone like me automatically goes into a self-analytical mode and until I find sensible answers, it is a huge challenge for me to get out.

On the other hand, it is very easy to make me happy. You can ask my friends and they have even made fun of me for this. Recently, a friend said these exact words to me “What happened now? You go “AAHHH” and “AAAWW” over everything.” Nevertheless, I couldn’t overcome this feeling.

Ever since I remember, I’ve had a very close relationship with God; especially Lord Ganesh and every birthday, He has made sure that I receive something ‘extra’ from His side, as a present. This year though, He had put me in a tough spot. Was this a present in disguise? Was there something magical about this too? Every time I asked myself this question, I received a soaring gush of emotion from within which made the whole experience feel “wrong”, which means ‘not right’! (I know wrong = not right, but I’m just… ah! Just get the “point” okay?!)

Evidently, I’m feeling cranky even writing this… Kindly excuse my mood swings ladies and gentlemen! 😀

Harsh and I are both artists and cannot hide feelings from each other. Both of us express in more ways than one so it was so difficult for us to be alright. By evening that day Ashwini sent me a voice message that said that a Birthday is only an illusion in time and there is way too much unnecessary pressure on that one day to be happy and wonderful. Some times, it is not. So, it is best to just relax and let go of that pressure. So I did just that and apart from the love that poured into my phone through wishes, I did not have a very good birthday.

The next day, Harsh went by himself determined to find the missing laptop. At this point I was convinced that it was sold and fearful visual images of my face cropped over lure pictures flooding the internet came to my mind. (Yes! That is imagination for you. That is what it does in such situations; shows you the worst scenarios with all its might.)

Harsh went to the RTO office, took the address of the driver down, understood that he has a loan from XYZ bank, took down details, visited the bank and did everything he could on his own. No luck. No one was ready to give him exact or correct details. This was the 30th of November. It had already been two days.

On 1st December, as he left to the Police Station to recheck on the complaint he had filed on 28th, I tried my best to stop him. ‘If it was meant to leave, its futile to chase it. The Universe will do everything to keep it away from us. Its been three days already. Just leave it.’ He was determined and he mentioned that he was doing it all for himself. That morning, I instinctively said goodbye to a side of Harsh that would never return. When he came back that night, at 9.00 pm, with my laptop in hand, from the cover to the data in tact, I would see a whole other man altogether. A man who had a shimmer of victory in his eyes and a confident stride I had never seen before.

Harsh went to the Police station that morning like a resolute soldier. He showed them a dance video of ours from San Francisco with ‘Jai Hai’ playing from our National Anthem and our Indian flag fluttering in the background. “This is the kind of work we are doing Sir. Ten years of my Fiancee’s work is in that laptop and it is lost because I was careless. I need to find it for her.”

Obviously, they were touched by the video (and I’m so glad that they were! Jai Hind!!!!!). It so happened that a Commando from the Crime Branch of Mumbai was in the office. This Commando has been trained to live without food, water or sleep for three full days. He took Harsh under his wing. A series of events transpired. That night, when I listened to Harsh narrate the details of the day, it felt like I was watching a movie.

The main owner of the auto had given wrong information to the bank to get his loan. There was some “jhol” (craftiness) here and some “jhol” there. That is why no one was really giving out complete details. The Commando went about the whole search relentlessly and Harsh was surprised to see people talking to them casually until the Commando would show them his badge and say “Mumbai Police”. There would be a sudden change in their body language, face expression and voice as they gave out details helplessly.

A whole day of chase was involved and Harsh was pleasantly surprised to see the kind of work that goes in as a Police officer. The Commando was dressed in plain clothes. He took Harsh into the slums, in search of the driver, while acting like a Rajasthani man, a broker and then a Maharashtrian civil officer. He told Harsh that in such areas if people get to know that the Police has come in, there are catastrophic things that can happen and this was why he needed to act like a civilian. The interesting part was how Harsh got to “act” along with him so no one doubted their true identity.

This was only afternoon and still no luck.

The Commando didn’t give up. This was when Harsh saw the kind of relentlessness these officers have and their genuine intent towards justice. They went to the sources around that area of Mumbai who usually provide the Police with information. Calls were made to senior officials and after much exertion, by about late evening, they were back in the slum area, at the office of the Broker who had arranged the vehicle. Like a dream, Harsh watched the driver appear, with the Laptop bag in hand; a vision, he had ‘visualized’ in his mind a hundred times. The driver had not sold the laptop only because India is currently going through a shortage of cash. Therefore, the driver had decided to take the laptop to his village. As a result, surprisingly, every detail of the equipment, including the colourful bag with INDIA written on it, was completely in tact.

The driver was taken to the Police station saying that he merely has to sign on a paper. On the way there, the officer and Harsh spoke to him about how he should have morally returned the Laptop to the building where he dropped us or to a nearby police station. Before they reached, the Commando stopped at a Sugarcane juice seller and bought juice not only for Harsh, but also for the driver. Once they reached the Police station, the driver was put behind bars for one night. The Police told Harsh that punishing this driver will help a hundred others, to always return any bags / belongings that are left behind in their vehicles.

Harsh was made to switch on the laptop so they could properly check everything especially since we were so keen on getting it back! Before he left, Harsh was invited to have Chai with all of them. As he sat there, one Police officer told Harsh how people think that they do nothing, as he pointed to all the desks there filled with piles of complaints.

As I type this experience over this same famed laptop, I cannot help but think how, eventually, everything in life makes perfect sense. My emotional upheaval that encouraged Harsh to set sail on this hunt, sent him to a one-day University that thoroughly changed him as a person. This experience taught him to believe in himself, in God and in his own power, like never before. He saw the working of the Mumbai Police from such close quarters and his respect for their dedication grew multifold.

I also learnt that if you are meant to feel a particular way, you will and nothing will help you feel better until you are supposed to feel better. There was a reason why this incident felt “wrong” and why I was inconsolable. There was a reason why all of this transpired and in more ways than one, I am so, so grateful!

Thank You MUMBAI POLICE!!! Thank you so much!!!

Thank you God for your miraculous scripting and for sending me, the best HERO I could ever find… Harshvardhan Singh!

This Blogpost is humbly dedicated to
Commando Deepak Bhagal and PSI Mr. Dhawale.

With officers like them, we can stay happy and safe.

May the World be a Safe and Wonderful place to live in.

Jai Hind.