Lost & Found

Most `bespectacled` human beings like me would have gone through the experience of misplacing their specs; then frantically searching for it and very often finding it tucked above their foreheads. A couple of days ago I found my missing specs in an unusual place.

While at home, I normally don`t wear my specs. It will be lying around in some place , until I wear it when I am going out. On that day  I could not find it anywhere in spite of a desperate search. I remembered that I had placed it next to me while doing my physio lying on my bed.  I was very sure it must be somewhere in the house but I could not locate it. When my housemaid came to work, I told her to look for my specs while sweeping the floors, hoping that she will find it as she always does with the things  I miss like  utensils in the kitchen or  any other personal items like my wrist watch, pen etc. I was relaxing on my easy chair with a cup of  degree coffee and the morning newspaper, when I heard her scream, `Saar, I have found your specs`.   I rushed to find her  holding my specs  in her hand sitting next to the washing machine. She told me that the specs had popped out of the bed sheet, when she was removing the washed clothes from the machine. I was surprised to find the specs  totally intact with not even a  scratch. It had withstood all the churning and twisting in the machine . Amazing! I realized that while pulling out the bed sheet from the bed, the specs which was lying on the bed, had gotten entangled in the bed sheet and gone into the machine. I heaved a sigh of relief and thanked God for saving me a couple of thousand rupees.

On another occasion I was not so lucky. My wife and I were on a visit to Brindavan in UP, the birth place of Lord Krishna, as a part of  our pilgrimage to Divya Desams. A place teeming with monkeys, where you are warned , not to carry anything in your hand as the monkeys were trained snatchers of items carried by pilgrims on their person. Though I did not carry anything  in my hands I was totally unprepared for what happened to me that day. Only when I heard people looking at me and screaming ` Aap ka Chasma ( specs)… `, I realized that a monkey had snatched my specs straight from my nose even while it was in  motion, jumping from one location to another. An incredible act of speed and precision indeed! The next minute I saw the monkey sitting on top of a structure and waving my specs, as if to tease me.  I tried to throw some stones at it hoping that it would  throw my specs back. No such luck. In a few moments it vanished from the scene. I had lost a good pair of expensive specs for ever! Later I learnt that snatching of specs from  unwary pilgrims by monkeys  is a regular feature in Brindavan. I was sure that the monkey was an agent of some guy who was dealing with used spectacles. I managed the rest of the trip with the spare spectacle I always carry with me whenever I am on tour. 

 As they say, In life you  win some  and  lose some!

This article has appeared in the 7-13^th October,2018 issue of Adyar Times