11 November, 2004--Short Story, Birthday

So this is just a quick story about an incident that occurred today. I was working on my paper this morning in the study center when my friend Michael came back from breakfast. Because I had earlier informed him that I was going to go jacket shopping today, he told me there was a fellow around the corner selling jackets. We walked out of the study center to the road and the jacket vala happened to be coming our way. We stopped and began perusing his selection of jackets. In India people sell clothes, fruit, cooked food and more from carts which they roll around neighborhoods. I took off my man-purse to try on a jacket and it was okay, but the jacket didn’t punch me in the stomach, so I put my man-purse back on. We were looking at a couple more jackets when all of a sudden, the jacket vala said he was leaving. This seemed highly irregular to me as most valas that sell goods from carts encourage people to look in the hopes that they will buy something. For whatever reason, it was then that I checked for my cell phone. I was pretty sure I brought it with me and kept it in it’s little Velcro compartment in my man-purse, but I could have been mistaken. I checked my pockets and my purse and couldn’t find it anywhere. The jacket vala really wanted to get on his way and he was trying to leave. I asked him why he wanted to leave and he told me that we were just looking and not buying anything. I told him we were looking first and then were going to buy. This didn’t seem to make any difference to him and he just wanted to leave. I couldn’t find my phone anywhere, but didn’t want to accuse him, because as many of you know, I can be quite absent-minded. I told Michael that I thought the guy might have taken my cell phone and asked him to run back to the study center to look for it on the desk and chair I was using. While Michael was gone, the jacket vala kept trying to leave with his cart but I stood in his way. I kept asking him what happened and why he wanted to leave. At this point I hoped that Michael was going to come back with my phone in his hand, but my gut felt otherwise. As he tried to leave while I blocked his way, my friend Sejal came walking out. I told her what was going on and because her Hindi is better than mine, I asked her to tell him that there was no problem and that we wanted to buy jackets, hoping to keep him around longer. He kept insisting and trying to leave and I finally told him that I thought my phone might be in the pile of jackets. He told me to look through the jackets and I did just that, finding nothing. Michael came back and said he couldn’t find my phone anywhere. Then I asked him to wait there while I ran back to the study center in case I dropped it or left it somewhere he didn’t happen to look. As I ran back to the study center, I was thinking myself a fool because just the day before I had recharged the card with over sixty American dollars. I just didn’t want to deal with getting a new cell phone and number and all that when I’m so close to coming home. When I got back to the study center, I picked up my friend’s cell phone and kept dialing my number prompting it to ring in the hopes that I would hear it and retrieve it. I heard nothing. As I was running back to where the cart was, I kept calling the phone. While Sejal and Michael were talking to him, they thought they heard a faint ring. The problem was the jacket vala kept talking whenever it rang so they couldn’t hear exactly what it was or where it was coming from. Eventually Michael heard what he though was my cell phone ringing and he asked the jacket vala what the sound was. The jacket vala said it was probably some auntie’s phone ringing in her house. As the phone continued to ring, Michael bent down and it got a little louder. He stuck his hand below the cart into a bag and felt something vibrating. The jacket vala tried to stop him but Michael persisted and pulled out a handful of clothes wrapped around my cell phone and tied up in a bag underneath the cart! Just as this happened, I came running around the corner. Michael, Sejal and I stood there in disbelief at what had just happened. We weren’t sure what to do. Part of me wanted to knock the guy’s block off, but then I realized that nothing good would come of that. We thought about getting the police involved, but there was no one around and we weren’t even sure how to contact the police. The jacket vala said nothing because he knew we caught him. We swore at him in Hindi and walked off, cell phone in hand, astonished at what had just happened.


Actual Photo of Zameer Talking on Actual Phone after Thwarted Theft Attempt*

*Minimal Photoshop editing done to increase bust size and decrease self-esteem