While Visiting India this time Griz lost my watch at the Dubai airport, I had given the leather strap watch to her for safe keeping in her hand bag as the heat was so much and I was sweating like anything lugging all the bags and cartons into the x-ray machine and to the boarding counter.
It was never easy to make International travel with bags and kids. Kids can be managed with a Nancy Drew paper back and an Archie’s Double Digest (my trick of-late to keep them busy) but the bags are the real pain. First you check the weight of the bags to ensure that they don’t go beyond the permitted levels by airline, then you keep a count of how many, it my case it was 13!! (It was never meant to be so many but Thai allowed a special summer offer of 50 KG per ticket) then the pain of you lugging them into the airport in the trolleys.
In all this trials and tribulations the watch was lost and we never realized it until the time we were in Duty Free staring at the chocolates, in order to buy for all the Uncles and Aunties in India. It came as shock to me because I had hardly used the watch, even though it was not an expensive watch still it was bought by hard earned money and it pained a lot.
By this time we were at the boarding gate and I still had about ½ hour for the flight. I decided to give it a try and left Griz and Kids at the gate and went back and informed security personnel about my problem. He directed me to go back the way I came. I went back all the way through passport control and was helped by another security personnel who also accompanied me all the way to the X ray machine and the entrance where I thought the watch could have got lost. I did a thorough check at the X ray machine and to my surprise I could see so many watches, cash, chains, keys and what not which was left behind by passengers. I was consoled to some extend to realize that I am not alone in this ordeal. The security person even helped me to check in the second x ray check and I completed my check and could not find it.
By then I had calmed down a bit as the realization was setting in - That’s it buddy what is lost is lost forget it… meanwhile Griz was making emergency calls to advise that the flight will leave in 5 minutes and if you don’t come back our vacation will be in Dubai only and not in Chennai. I rushed back making up my mind to push this aside and look forward to a great Vacation.
Well, it was 3 months since I am back in Dubai and when I was telling this story to my cousin who asked me whether I checked at the Lost & Found section in the Airport, I said it is of no use as I had personally checked all the x ray machines where it could have got lost when the hand bag came out tumbling down. And I don’t see a possibility. We left it at that… after few days I had an opportunity to visit the airport and thought about this Lost & Found section and decided to give it a try and approached the Airport Police and explained my situation and they diligently asked for the date and time of travel and the area through which I had entered the airport.
I gave them all the information and to my surprise the Police Officer retrieved my watch within 10 minutes. I was lost for words and I still cannot imagine how this was possible. Again and again we go through the events on that day and we are sure that this could have got lost at the X ray machine which I checked personally.
I see this as a Miracle and was happily re-united with my lost watch. The lesson I learned here is that never give importance to material things as that could give you a heart ache when you lose something that you feel precious about. Secondly, if God decides that you should get something, you will get it even though you lose it and against all odds.......
