Does this happen to everyone?

My wallet got stolen today.

And it gets even better. It had my passport in it. With all my money and credit cards.

And it gets better still. I am in China right now. In a country where even getting water is a problem because people just don’t know any English. My flight back is on Monday.

And today being a Saturday the embassy is shut.

And it will be tomorrow as well. I will have to beg and plead with the Indian embassy to issue an Emergency Landing certificate to me if I have to catch my flight back.

AND because I have a history of losing/wrecking my phones/wallets nobody believes that someone actually stole it.

No. It’s not that my family is not being supportive and giving me a hard time about the whole incident. My sister (her passport was at the hotel so she was a lot calmer), who is travelling with me called the cops. My parents, who are back home, immediately took control of the situation (as I was obviously nearing hysteria) called someone they knew in the Indian embassy in China and had someone come and give us money.

Then followed 4 long hours of abusing and accusing the person who we think stole the wallet. All in English while he also (possibly) abused us in Chinese. We then made the cops drag him to the Police Station. His girlfriend also joined us, by the way. And she was also abusing us (again, I am guessing going by her facial expression). I just maintained a very angry expression on my face.

And my sister, somehow, found humour in this helpless situation and started off about how I will be stuck in China for months now.

The cops didn’t know what to do with us as they could not understand anything we said. We then called our translator/business associate and had him translate the entire situation to the Police. Thankfully, a Police officer who spoke English was called. He, along with 5-6 other officers made us narrate a minute-by-minute account of what was followed by the actual theft of the wallet. We were exhausted by the end of it.

It’s not the loss of the wallet that is bothering me too much. All the things inside are replaceable.

It’s the fact that this happens to me a lot. I would like to believe that I am not a careless person. But every time a year or so passes of me not losing/wrecking my phone/wallet it happens again.

And as my sister put it very kindly just before sleeping right now “These things happen all the time. It is a part of life. Yes, they happen a lot more to you than to others but that’s just a coincidence. “

The first time I ever lost my phone was when I was in 12th standard. It was a Nokia 8310. My fathers’ disposed off model. I was in my pyjamas when a friend dropped in and we decided to go for a drive. I didn’t know there was a big hole in my pyjama pocket and I put the phone in. All would have been fine had I not decided to get off the car. But I did.

And then the next time was when I dropped it off while getting off the car. Whoever picked it up, didn’t know how to use it and kept answering the phone instead of cancelling it when I called. I followed the noises for a while till he/she finally figured it out and I lost track.

Then I dropped my wallet in a similar manner. Thankfully it had nothing in it so it hasn’t bothered me till now.

Then I dropped my wallet while I was running out for my class. I was a post graduate student in University of Nottingham and the wallet had my bus pass, credit cards and some “Body Shop” gift vouchers. And no money. But this time, the person who found it returned it.

Then, I dropped my wallet during the summer party while I was finishing my graduation in Nottingham. I was very careful these days about my belongings but it was towards the end of the party. I was fairly drunk. The wallet was in my bag. But the bag didn’t have a zipper. It had no money again. And I found it again. After a week of feeling horrid, though.

Then I dropped my phone in the washbasin last year. While the tap water was running. The phone was 6 months old, the D&G Motorazr. It recovered after a couple of days.

A couple of months back, I was catching an early morning flight back from Bombay. For no reason I decided to buy a bottle of water just before getting on the shuttle bus to get on the flight. I put the bottle beside my in the bus and started reading. The phone was in my back pocket and for some god forsaken reason the bottle was leaking! By the time I realised, the back of my denims and the phone was soaked. I have not been able to switch it on till date.

I then started using a Chinese touch screen phone a friend got for me. It was very cheap so I figured nothing would be lost if I wrecked this one. I somehow happened to sit on it during a bonfire. And the screen cracked. It is not a touch screen anymore but it works still. I have decided never to buy myself a decent phone.

And now today this happens. “I have outdone myself”, my sister says.

I really have.

My mom tried to cheer me up but I could sense helplessness in her tone. She just doesn’t know what to do with me. I jokingly suggested today that I should probably just get someone who would take care of all this for me.

And she is seriously considering it.