Miracle For Me

By Pradnya Inumella

Seeing the competition advertisement, it reminded me of the time from my school & college for similar events when my motivation and excitement benchmarks were on different level, and the satisfaction with each achievement were confidence boosters. As we grow old, some of this optimism wavers somewhere, not sure if this being the reason why I am not able to submit any article or story till last day of competition or is it due to my education as an engineer who are known for last minute submissions and last-minute studies.

So, when I finally pondered for some time on what topic to choose amidst the vast social media, OTT, and internet content at our disposal these days. There is no dearth of brilliant writers who are successfully managing to get people invest time into admiring their work and the options are unlimited. Then I thought about a short and simple event from my personal experience that I can share as a story. It is not a very filmy story with any grand background and does not involve multiple twists or turns or heartbreaks, neither is there a surprise element at the end, but the incident helped me rethink my views on people and made me believe that things could happen when we expect it at the least.

I am not a regular writer and is bit envious of those who are skilled to maintain a journal diligently. However, relying on my memory does help me to into that time. It is around nine to ten years back now when me and my husband shifted from Hyderabad to Thane for new job opportunity. Now when you stay in Mumbai, every destination is far, and my office was nothing different. I had to take either two buses or one bus and one local to reach office. One fine morning I decided to take two buses to office and got 1st bus, AC bus, relatively free. I got the tickets and kept some money change in front zip of my laptop bag for the next bus. Reached office on time, went through mails, calls and finally time for lunch, and when I opened the bag to get my wallet, it was nowhere to be seen. Though it did not have much of cash, I started panicking thinking about the ‘N’ number of bank and ID cards that it was carrying. Only vivid memory of seeing my wallet last time was when I had left home, could not remember where I could have left it in between home to office. Post some calls to bus depots and searching probable places, me and my husband decided to lodge a police complaint with very minimal hope of getting it back. Meanwhile I blocked my bank cards and was travelling to Hyderabad to collect new cards after 10-15 days. While I was on way to airport, my father-in-law called me from Hyderabad home saying that I have received a courier. I was not expecting any courier though and asked him to open it and there it was, the entire content of my wallet, including my passport photos, my voter card, license, and every tiny item including the rupee stamp. Someone came across my wallet and took efforts to identify my address from the ID cards and help me receive the contents as is. Sender did not mention the name, so I couldn’t thank them in any way, but am grateful for the person to make me feel happy, surprised, and made me believe in miracles even when it is smallest one.

Even today when I think of it, my face lights up in smile. Life we plan and plan to details but it takes break on its own to show us something different. For me, this incident was one of it and will always stay with amusement in my mind.

By Pradnya Inumella