Rapid pinging on the Hike messenger made me wash my hands and take a break from my cooking.
I opened the family “Home Talkies”
“Mama! Don’t freak out!”
I messaged back, “?????”
“I think I have lost my watch!”
The very responsible Doctor of the family was at Prayagraj Kumbh Mela. She was there on duty. She and her team had been put up at the eye camp. She shared her “room” with three other people. We all had been apprehensive about her going and roughing it out at the eye camp there. But she had been very pleased with all the arrangements made by the Organisers. Lovely warm tents; great attached bathrooms and the most important thing four square meals a day with lots of snacks, tea and coffee thrown in. True they had to work hard, but they had fixed timings, so it was a kind of break from the slavery that they had to face at college!
I sighed and thought, “Why did she have to get my bad genes?”. But like me I knew she would find it. I was the famous “lost and found” specialist of the family!
I messaged back, “You will find it!”
Father noticed the conversation sometime later and said, “No you won’t”
“Tell me when you last saw it”, I asked
“Well! I think I left it on the bed before I went for my bath.”
“It will be there, amongst the bedclothes”, I insisted
“Have searched!”, came the terse reply
“Maybe it’s time for a new watch!”, came another rejoinder
“You will find it”, I signed off.
There was discussion in the house about whether or not it would be found. Well all my life, I had lost things (Specially keys and money!); given up hope of ever finding them; found them definitely. This time around I was sure my mitochondria would find it!
After three days an abashed message, “Found my watch!”
“Where was it?”, three people messaged back simultaneously
“It was with my undies in the undies bag”
I never said, “I told you so!”
The next day I overslept as I hadn’t been keeping too well. I woke up to hear the face time app ringing.
I clicked on it to see the teary-eyed baby of the family, six thousand kilometres away in Chicago.
Of course, I panicked! But I am the parent, cannot show it!
“Mama! I have lost all my immigration papers!”
“No, you cannot have, I am sure you will find it”, I said reassuringly not feeling reassuring at all!
Lord and master took the I pad from me (he could see I was panicking)
“Where did you last see it?”, he asked
She had just returned from a business trip.
“Did you take it with you to Ohio?”, I asked
“No, I did not”, came the tearful rebuttal
“Where did you last see it?” repeated Dad
“Well, I kept very carefully. They are in a thick folder. When I came back from India, I first kept it on my bedside table, then I use to sleep with it every day…”
“Then?”, prompted Dad.
All this while my mind was going haywire thinking of where she could have kept it.
“Then once my bed got all dirty, so I kept it on the floor… for safe keeping you know”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Was that the last you saw it?” Dad said, a little frustration creeping into his voice.
“What about your passport?”
“Passport is fine I always keep it in this bag”, the bag was displayed to us.
I sighed, “You can get all the other papers from the university, right?”
“I suppose so, but it will take time and I need to submit the documents tomorrow!”, wailed my baby
I doubted my mitochondria for a second! I never left things for the last moment. That must be from her father, I comforted myself.
“Take me around the places you could have kept it. What about the suitcase?”, I asked tentatively, sure I would get an impatient answer in response.
“That was the first place I looked for!”, was the snappy reply
“Do it again, just to please me”, I wheedled
The suitcase was got out, I saw her hands going all over it.
“No, its not there!”, she wailed
I got up to leave the I pad. My mitochondria had failed! I was mutely looking at my better half for some reassurance.
“Hell!” the young one exclaimed
“I think its here! But I don’t know how to get it out!”
I was frozen!
Lots of noise from the iPad, I did not dare look into it.
“Got it!”, said the triumphant voice
There she was, with the teary-eyed smile (Which by the way her father loves), the absconding folder in her hand!
I could have given her a whack and hug at the same time.
Well don’t need DNA testing for these two, they definitely have my mitochondria!
The Parallel World 