“Papa,
the girls are through with the rides here. Where are you?”
It
was my son, calling from the children’s section of the Global Village.
Let
me explain to the uninitiated that Global Village is a 1.5 million square metre
complex popular for its shows and pavilions in Dubai. And, let me explain to
the conventional that my son was referring to his two daughters by the modern
term, ‘girls’. Finally, let me explain to the young readers (because the senior
ones already know it) that after a certain age one is more keen on being parked
near a loo than on a ride that shoots to the sky at lightening speed and drops so
rapidly that some riders fail to prevent the first flow of a warm stream wetting
their pants in resonance with the pull of gravity.
I
don’t need a ride to mobilise such liquid movement; just a thought is
sufficient for the urge to materialize. Of course, one does not reveal such delicate
information before the kith and kin, though it’s an entirely different matter
that they guess one’s condition by the shifty movements and the strategic
placement of shopping bags or newspapers.
While
my son and his wife and their daughters were busy near the swings, my wife and
I were ensconced on a bench in close proximity of a toilet.
“We
are near the Grand Dhaba, at the side of the Floating Market, son!” I answered.
I wasn’t lying, those two establishments were adjacent to the toilet.
“OK, we
are coming.”
They
came, left Inaya and Aavya and a pram and some bags in our custody, and
suggested, “You can take them on that bus ride and then to that movie show till
we return.”
I
wonder why children and even some adults opt for “that bus ride”. That
battery-run dwarf metal structure hardly accommodates twelve children, moves like
an earthworm, and covers the same area that one has already surveyed on foot. I
mean, if you are conversant with a car ride, you cannot expect anything further
from that bus ride.
Clearly,
I am in the minority. Inaya and Aavya ran to the bus, occupied the front of the
open deck, and waved vigorously at us. The bus started crawling. I started
taking the mandatory video clip that is never seen and simply deleted when the
phone becomes sluggish after some months. My wife limped to usurp a fragment of
a bench occupied by two persons.
The bus was back
before a toddler could count from one to ten. We greeted the children as if
they had returned after a sea voyage in the 19th Century. So much
had changed since they went on that trip! Inaya had started feeling cold on a
March evening in Dubai. Blessed with the women’s sixth sense of finding hidden
objects, my wife extracted a jacket from a pile of junk in the pram.
“Wear it,” she asked
Inaya.
“What about Aavya?” I
asked.
“She is already
wearing it!” Snapped my wife.
I don’t like to surrender
cheaply, but the odds of my winning an argument were rather few at the moment.
I started walking like an epitome of gracefulness.
“I don’t expect them
to return soon,” my wife thought aloud.
We started walking to
the theatre. We, i.e., Aavya, my wife, and I. Tired after the bus ride, Inaya
wanted to travel in the pram. We emptied the pram. Inaya stepped in, toppled it,
and regained balance.
We started walking to
the theatre again. Aavya stopped us.
“Isn’t it unfair that
my elder sister gets a pram ride while I must walk?” She asked.
A big salute to the
pram manufacturer—the pram accommodated both of them.
We started walking to
the theatre for the third time. My wife carried the bags, I pushed the pram.
A show was on at the
amphitheater.
“Let’s buy the tickets
when the next movie starts,” I advised no one in particular. By then, Inaya had
already jumped out of the pram and started running down the aisle.
Aavya looked at us in
confusion.
“There are no tickets here,”
my wife informed. “Inaya,” she called above the gallery, “take Aavya with you.”
Inaya had already
started enjoying the movie and was in no mood to forsake her seat.
“I’m buying popcorn,”
my wife called again.
Inaya grabbed the popcorn
packet and started running back.
“Take Aavya with you,”
my wife reminded her.
Inaya slowed down a
tad, kept her eyes glued on Masha and the Bear, and spoke with a mouthful of
popcorn, “Come, Aavya!”
We settled down on a
nearby bench. My wife started inspecting her swollen feet. I started looking at
the families perched on grass with food enough to feed a village in Somalia.
“Don’t ogle at the
women, keep your focus on our children,” my wife admonished me.
There they were, two
figures clad in identical jackets, almost lost in a crowd of humanity.
A sudden burst of
firecrackers jolted me. Fireworks had started. All eyes remained fixed on the
sky at a corner of the Global Village for the entire two or three minutes till
the display continued. Back on terra firma, I noticed that my son and his wife and
their two daughters were standing together not far from us.
Inaya and Aavya
rejoined us after the movie was over. We were ready to go home after they had
fun at the Turkish ice-cream kiosk and we had a generous fill of coconut
ice-cream.
“A nice outing,” my
son’s wife observed as we reached the approach road of our neighborhood.
We murmured in
agreement. The taste of the coconut ice-cream still lingered on my palate.
“Where is my jacket,”
asked Inaya.
While my son and I
were on the front seats, Inaya and Aavya were sitting sandwiched between their
mother and grandmother.
“You are not wearing
it?” Both ladies asked, looking at her.
I looked at Inaya.
My son was driving. He
didn’t turn his head, but might have looked at her from the rear view mirror.
All of us, including
Inaya, were certain that she wasn’t wearing her jacket.
“I gave it to you when
you got down from the bus,” my wife remarked.
She admitted, “Yes!”
“You were not wearing
it when you were watching the fireworks!” My son accused.
“Papa, it was so hot
that I couldn’t keep wearing it,” she retorted in a weak voice.
“I’m still wearing my
jacket!” Aavya declared.
“So you left it in the
theatre! When will you learn to take care of your belongings?” Her mother was
getting angry.
Inaya started crying.
“If you cry, I will
drop you right here,” her mother threatened.
The atmosphere was
becoming tense. I shuffled in my seat. Something rubbed against my shoes. It
was a plastic packet. I might have kept Inaya’s jacket in that packet, I thought.
I picked it up.
“Here is a jacket,” I
started triumphantly, only to lower my voice immediately, “but it is mine!”
If my son and his wife
and my wife and Inaya cursed me, the malediction completely escaped my senses.
“How old was it?” I had
inadvertently started using past tense for the object.
“May be, two or three
years! And I had bought it at a discount sale for only four or five hundred
rupees.” My son’s wife was clearly attempting to trivialize the loss.
“That is hardly 22
dirhams which is less than what we pay for a haircut at a not-so-decent salon,”
I observed.
“Hmm … let’s order
chicken burgers for all except Padma and Inaya,” my son said.
His wife, Padma,
cannot stand meat in food. His daughter, Inaya, cannot stand anything other
than meat in food.
“Why no chicken
burgers for me,” Inaya shrieked between sobs.
“It’s a punishment for
losing that jacket,” my son replied.
Inaya looked at her
grandmother, important communication was held between the two in complete
silence, and Inaya looked comfortable again. My wife must have conveyed that she
would secretly exchange her chicken burger with Inaya’s vegetarian dish.
“Should I go back to
Global Village?” My son pondered over his chicken burger.
“No point! The entry
ticket costs more than the book value of that jacket,” his wife advised.
“Then?” He asked.
“I’ll call the Lost
& Found department there,” she said.
About 40 thousand
people visit the Global Village every day. The children’s theatre runs several
back-to-back shows. Each show is attended by more than hundred children and
adults from Asia, Africa, and other continents. Only the most optimistic can
expect to reclaim a carelessly left jacket under the circumstances.
My son’s wife called
up Global Village. A two-minute wait and some more calls later, she was
connected to the Lost & Found executive.
“See, my daughter left
her jacket in the kids’ theatre at around nine this evening. It’s a white
jacket with pink polka dots … no, it’s a pink jacket with white cheetah prints
…”
“Well, the shows
continue till two in the morning. If our cleaning staff finds it, it would be
deposited at the Lost & Found”. Please call up at six tomorrow evening,”
came a polite reply.
Wouldn’t a 22-dirham
jacket challenge the honesty of a low-paid cleaner, in the remote chance of
none of the hundreds of viewers having already walked out with it, we asked
ourselves.
The son’s wife called
them the next day.
“Do you have a picture
of the jacket?” She was asked.
She sent the picture
over WhatsApp.
“Yes, it is here!
Please come to the exit and ask for being taken to the Lost & Found
department. You don’t have to buy a ticket for that,” came the advice.
She went to the
designated place. There it was, neatly folded, on the table. My son’s wife had successfully extracted a needle from the haystack.
We were happy. Our
faith in morality, human values, and management systems had risen further.
संदेश
