Well, well I was just reading this post of mine which was written more than a year back and I couldn't help but be amused at how much it screamed for an update! Unfortunately , Yes. Some things don't change I guess .
Living on my own, earning my own bread and butter ( and jam, pancakes, Greek salads etc etc) , one would think that an element of responsibility and carefulness would've eventually crept into me. So did I. But no, the 'jinx' seems to have affixed itself with me for life . After the (original) last post, many more 'valuables' have said a ' hi & bye ' to me and i have been a victim of my own self.
Chew on this. 3 days after I move to Hyderabad- I manage to flush my shiny new iPhone in the Google Loo. ( Gloo anyone?;p) Yes the same phone that i almost lost in Kerala ( refer to original post) . I guess that was a sign of things to come. So with a phone that's just come back from a swim, ( let's spare u the details of the 'pool') and pretty much as good as a brick ( damn u apple!) , my only hope of connectivity to the world I'd just left behind, boils down to my laptop that decides to crash- indefinitely- just 2 days later!! And i'm sitting in a hotel room, with 0 friends, 0 ways to contact people, a deadline on my head to find a house, all without a single means of communication, while i'm still dealing with homesickness and other challenges of a big move like mine had been !
While the dust settles on the recent two big losses and my new life takes its course, and i move on , with only minor setbacks every now & then - Like losing cash from my jeans that I had ON, having a lens from a pair of Prada shades mysteriously come off and disappear even more mysteriously while I have them ON , stuff like that. Until one fine day recently- When my 2 months old Nexus one departs- Yes the same phone that I - very dedicatedly did a super enthu review on the 1st day i got the phone - the first phone that for once no family member sponsored- the first phone that I truly thought was 'the one' for me- a phone worth about a bomb in the market -And guess how?
From my own house- under my own nose - By someone I KNEW and INVITED to my house to begin with !! A phone that survives 20 days of being subjected to the extremities of train/bus/bike/rikshaw journeys/snow/sweat/altitude of 8500ft above sea-level during my Ladakh trip but gets disappeared from my own place days later! So while i'm battling with the usual swirl of activities that ensues after a phone loss , again my digital life goes back to revolving around my laptop and thankfully an internet connection on tap ; but yes you guessed it- comfort taken too soon. Barely a fortnight after the android gone, my datacard does the vanishing act! Like it actually grew legs and walked outta my bag ! And all over again, i find myself sitting out there without a phone and an internet-less laptop (tv w/out cable) with no clue about the whereabouts of the departed souls and no hopes of them ever returning, while dealing with other life-changing issues in life - that perhaps warrant a blogpost of their own sometime.
shit happens. no.when it's me, shit happens, records itself, plays on repeat mode, instead of shoving it up where it belongs, ever so often.
( the original post written in Aug 2009 starts here :)
Last week I lost my camera ( Sony cybershot 8mp ,the works) when i'd gone to Alleppey to watch the annual Snakeboat race on the backwaters over the weekend. Though the trip was brief but great, losing my camera on the last day, was a dampener of sorts.Ironically, the camera was ruined by being damp. We were out on the beach of our resort, late night by the bonfire and I was perched a good meters away from where the furthest waves broke onshore and out of nowhere this freak wave zooms past me and creams the camera away! And though i manage to fish the camera out, you know when a camera gets wet, it's dead...and sea water drenched camera particularly is no ray of hope.
Now this post just aint to rant about me having lost my camera! but the THIRD , 1-2-3rd, camera in 7months! and that my luckier-friend is only the tip of the iceberg.
My first camera ( atleast the first i can remember) was mysteriously lost in Dubai when i was there for a mere 10hours! The next one, got ruined from no apparent reason in Goa a month later ! So coastal cities and my cameras don't really like each other do they?
or is it that, am i jinxed altogether with ALL my stuff? Every incident, every event of my life is peppered with atleast one mishap/ disaster of every shape, size and colour ( especially of the 'greener' kinds!) And the misery doesn't just restrict itself to cameras, I've lost phones too in the most bizarre circumstances.Say, barely 5 minutes back you'd have been happily gassing on the phone and voila now someone else probably is!
Going back to the Kerala trip, i even almost lost my iphone and had it not been for this honest, good soul( bless him) who found and returned it, that'd ve added to the RIP list of the n73, sony walkman, and the China phones ( yeah what else can you expect to still have after losing 3phones!)
And losing things is not the only sample of my ability to invite disasters. That area has also been explored by the Bangalore Traffic authorities! My bike( Scooty pep qualifies) has been towed or/and I've been pulled over at least a good 15times in the 3yrs that i've been riding in Bangalore. For reasons ranging from " parking in non-parking zone' ( dude, if the no-parking board is a kilometer away from where i parked, does that even still count as no parking??! ) or when you go to a store next door to pick up bread for breakfast and when you're out of the store and find that you may not get to eat that bread for another good few hours until u manage to get the damned bike out of the police station is not no fun) to' no helmet' ( My helmet was soaking wet from the rain/ i had a migraine/ my helmet got lost!) to no license . ( It's not my fault if my riding test is always at a time i cant make it!).all these sweet encounters have made me poorer by few grand not to forget the ordeal involving madly , panic-ridden, scurrying around town, trying to locate the police station and subsequently an ATM for the crisp,fresh notes to feed the cops and pleading with them ( when you just about want to knee them u know where! ) to let you go with minimum damage.
Cameras, phones, traffic cops,, now all these are ultimately indirectly monetary losses...but what when you lose hard, solid, dough itself ! I've had my , err i cant even say hard-earned , ok my meticulously-saved money miraculously stolen from the my wardrobe-the security on which could give RBI a run for their 'money', from my wallet in college,from my jeans pocket(that i had ON!) you name it!
and trust me, it may sound funny, but it's not.It wasn't funny when on a college trip to Hongkong,on the first day itself, a few minutes after we were put up in our hotel room i realised my bag was missing!- the one that had my camera(!), My phone (!!), all my money (!!!) AND my passport!!! i didnt know what 'suicidal tendencies' meant until that time! However thankfully it wasn't India and a CCTV control room visit, later, we found the guy who'd found my bag 'lying in the elevator' and picked it up ( to return or no, that remains a hanging question) and i was just saved from possibly the biggest mess of my life- international level.
Now considering my track record with all this, losing/ruining others' things cant be out of my peripherals -can it? So this friend of mine shows me this crystal keychain with her 3D face on it, that a fiend of hers had gifted her an hour back and while i was enviously admiring it, BANG!! it's all over the floor! And next thing you know, I'm sitting at the shop where her friend got it and getting a duplicate! damages?- a cool 500 . So much for being nice and considerate BUT a disaster-magnet .
People are not even surprised anymore. I'm not sure if i am. I knew i'd surpassed that stage, when minutes after losing my camera, i was asking a photographer friend of mine, about the SLR ( Read: professional, expensive ) range of cameras ! And more often than not, I'm faced with a "so what did you lose this time" ? "oh so you just did a Monica!" ( not sure if that's what my dad meant by 'making a name for yourself!)
is there like some evil force up there who just cant see me happy for longer than 10minutes?? or am I the favourite subject of Murphy's law?
The only good though that it does is, makes people so thankful for their darned good luck. Sure talk to me when you've had a 'shit happens' moment and see how my own catastrophic life will make you feel better in a minute! hell you might even derive some kinda sadistic kick outta my misery! I can be the example which moms give their children ' ill check your pencilbox after school to see if you haven't 'monica-ed' your stuff honey, !)
So much for being the organized and meticulous Cancerian that I'm supposed to be.
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