LOST AND FOUND

Walking out from the airport was as easy as walking in a park for Shakir. His cab arrived like butter on bread. Shakir got inside the cab quickly letting the driver put the baggage inside the dickey and while doing so the dickey banged over one of the suitcase. “Hey! Watch out man. Be careful.” shouted Shakir from inside the cab.

“Sorry sir.” said the driver.

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Krish came out running from the airport all panicked and petrified. He is late again. His cab arrived like a sleepwalker. Krish was putting his baggage inside the dickey refusing the driver’s help to do so. He closed the dickey with a loud and hard bang. The driver was yelling from inside the cab. Krish was not at all in a mood to talk back with the driver. He hurried to get inside the cab when his feet fell on something small but tough. He looked below to find out. It was a beautiful lock with an amazing golden shine and lots of things was carved all over the body of the lock. Krish slipped it inside the pocket of his blazer and stepped into the cab in a jiffy. He just wanted to reach home as soon as possible. He was hungry and exhausted.

The road was surprisingly vacant so Krish reached home in 30 minutes. When he was about to pay the cab fare to the driver a text message appeared on his phone asking him to pay just the 50% of the fare as today is the 4^th anniversary of the cab company. Krish scoffed and moved on. He freshened up quickly, drank a glass of water and he took out his phone to order some food, his doorbell rang. Krish walked to the door. The woman next door was standing with food packets as it was her son’s 10^th birthday and as always Krish was late so she took the effort to deliver the parcels herself.

“Every one is celebrating their birthdays on the same day or I am just getting lucky?” Krish wondered.

The food was awesome. After satisfying his hunger Krish projects the whole day from morning till now in front of his eyes lying on his bed. He distinctly remembers when he came out from the hotel in London where he was for work from last 2 months; at first he forgot his phone and the keys inside the room and the room got locked from outside, then his cab took ages to arrive, he almost missed his flight back to India, the kid sitting beside him puked all over his jeans, the air hostess dropped a bag on his head, turbulence (that should also be included), his baggage got exchanged in the belt. Krish remembers, such things were always a part of his life from the very beginning. He accepted the fact that he is a jinx. But all of a sudden he is lucky!! This was hardly acceptable. Krish jumped up on his bed and thought “where’s that thing I found in the airport? I need to find that.”

Krish turned on the light, kept it on the table and sat with a magnifying glass and his laptop. It was a beautiful lock with something etched all over it and it was glowing…….well …….not literally but it seemed emitting light. It was very shiny. Krish minutely observed every detail carved on the lock and he found the script to be hieroglyphic. Krish ran his fingers abruptly on his laptop. He found many matches but the problem was he didn’t understand a single stroke. He got to know only one thing that this lock had something to do with Anubis, a jackal-headed Egyptian deity. He tried hard to open the lock but all of his attempts seemed a total failure. Krish decided to visit the library for more info.

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Shakir was very confused about the stuffs happening all around him. His hotel room was pre-booked but when he reached, someone else has booked that room and there was no vacant room left in the hotel. He had to book a motel near a railway station which smelled like dead bodies in morgue. He went out in search of food but not a single restaurant was open in that area because of some political rally. He had to fill his hungry stomach with water only. The small room was dim and stinky. The washroom was worse than hell. Shakir sat down on the bed with a dirty bed-cover on it. He opened his suitcase and was shocked. His lucky charm was missing. Shakir searched all his bags, turning down each and everything inside-out. But it was nowhere to be seen. Shakir sat with hands on his head, sweating profoundly with long face. The room looked darker and uncanny to him. He said to himself “I am ruined. How can I be so sloppy? Master once told me that these things are meant to be lost someday and I needed to protect it. Now I know why the bad-luck has suddenly wrapped me up all over. I have to find my lucky charm. I have to find that Anubis Lock. Shakir tried his best, beginning from the airport to every corner of the city. Regardless of every attempt, he failed. Helpless and exhausted he decided to go to the cops but before that he thought of talking to his master.

“What? Are you mad? How could you do this Shakir? And now you want to go to the cops? Are you out of your mind?” the yells came from the other side of the phone.

Shakir was listening silently. Master said “I will see what I can do. But don’t you dare to go to the cops you idiot. That lock was smuggled long time ago. The Egyptian government is still maneuvering around in search of it. That was a single piece in this world. It was stolen long- long time back and it reached me after passing through many hands. I gave it to you because you were running out of luck you jinx.”

Shakir was sobbing like a kid. He couldn’t say anything. Few moments later master said “stop crying Shakir. Did you sell the package for which you were send to India? No. isn’t it? I am mailing you the tickets back to Egypt. Take the first flight tomorrow. Be very careful with the consignment. You are at stake.” And master disconnected the call.  

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Krish spent a whole day hopping between the books in the library but in vain. He took a deep sigh and booked his tickets for Egypt; first flight tomorrow morning. He thought “when the well can’t reach to the Mohammad then Mohammad will fly to the well.”

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 Shakir was lost in his thoughts staring outside the window from his seat. 20 more minutes left for the flight to take off. Shakir wanted to reach to his master as soon as possible.

“Hello!! Do you live in Egypt or just a tourist?” the passenger from the aisle seat asked Shakir.

Shakir stared at him for few seconds with a blank face. Then he said “I live there. And you?”

“I am a tourist. Oh!! By the way I am Krish. What’s your name?” said Krish with great excitement.

Shakir was not at all interested for friendship and all so replied in short “ Shakir” and he went back again to his own world of thoughts.

The plane took off smoothly. Half an hour later the air-hostess came with water and coffee. Shakir asked for a coffee and Krish took a glass of water. The air-hostess willingly extended her hand to serve the coffee cup to Shakir with a glorious smile and the coffee cup surprisingly jumped from the tray and drenched Shakir. Shakir was shouting as the hot coffee burnt his skin partially. Krish had a narrow escape. Krish was smiling because he knew it would have been him if the lock wasn’t in his pocket. After few tragic moments later Shakir said to Krish “I was born gremlin my friend. My mother and father both died just a day after I was born. Do you believe in lucky charms? Of course you don’t. I used to carry one, from a long time and the moment I lost it, my life got shattered. I just pray to the almighty that I  reach my home safe and sound.”

Krish sat speechless. He neither moved nor dared to look at Shakir. Krish wasn’t sure though but still he avoided Shakir the rest of the journey. He had only one thought in his mind that moment “is he talking about the same lock? Because it’s true I found it. Lost and found are somewhat made for each other. Its better I stay quite. But poor fellow, should I give it back to him?  I found it which means it belongs to me now. What if he is talking about something else? Its better I remain low and stop over thinking.”

They have hardly touched the Egypt soil when they saw cops all around. They came running and surrounded Shakir with guns in their hands targeting him deliberately. They took him away discretely on guard. The rest of the passengers then moved with ease towards the luggage belt. Krish stood dumbfounded unable to extract anything which happened right in front of his eyes.

Next morning in the hotel, Krish saw the newspaper was flooded with Shakir’s arrest news. Krish got to know that Shakir was a smuggler who went to India to sell precious and smuggled merchandise. The cops were in search for him from a very long time.

Krish took the next flight back to India along with his lucky charm, contented and glad.