This post is dedicated to Rachna and Siddharth who have restored my faith in humanity.
It began just like any other day. I was still solving some RC questions in my dreams when I woke up in the morning. By afternoon I decided it's time I watched Dhoom-2. (We were supposed to go for it on Monday, but my phone was on silent as usual.. and after 14 missed calls my friends gave up hope of reaching me)
In the evening, we tried Chanakya first..all the shows were housefull. Then we tried Sangam, got the balcony tickets (I had forgotten they existed. Courtesy: multiplexes)
We had some time before the show began so we decided to got to Qutab Institutional Area to have my fav Chicken paranthas in the Dhaba just opposite to IIFT.
But when we returned to Sangam, I realised I had lost my wallet on our way back from IIFT and it had the movie tickets in it, a debit card, some cash.. but most importantly -pics of my family.
There was no question of watching the movie ..I wasn't in the mood anymore.
I came back home and tried to call up the Citibank Helpline number. But everytime I tried to feed in my account number the voice said the ATM account has been closed. In a while, a Citi bank officer named Bhavna called up and I reported my loss. She said that the wallet has been found and a lady named Rachna has it. She wanted to verify a few details about my date-of-birth, mailing address etc. But I got suspicious. I asked her
"How can I give u my details just like that? How do I know u r really a bank officer and not somepone trying to misuse my card?"
My cynicism was met with pleasant amusement and she asked me to call up a Citibank helpline number and talk to a officer there.
I called up and gave my details. The contact number of the lady who had found my wallet was provided to me. She had taken the pain to get the card blocked.
The rest of the story is quite simple.
I called her up, she said her husband would be heading for Noida soon and I would get my wallet back. I was curious, I asked -How did u find my wallet??
She replied a man had found it lying on the street and not without a little stricture she said that fortunately it was found by someone who was not interested in the money. I asked if there were some photographs. She replied in affirmative and said that my passport size photograph had "Elsevier" written on its back. I confirmed it is the name of my project. And she added a word of advice: You should be more careful with your belongings!
But my bewilderment was more in intensity than my gladness.
She asked me where I lived and informed that her husband would be heading for Noida soon for his office.
I reached the gentleman's office and picked my wallet in due time (not without his verifying I was the girl in the photograph first ) . I just couldn't thank him enough.
He kidded about wanting to go to the movie themselves. I said" Oh you should have! At least the tickets would have been utilized!"
But then he said they had an one-year old kid and he had to come to office anyways.
I was still feeling incredulous.
And even while I script this post I can't help but wonder what made me lose the faith I had in people. Exactly when did I begin to believe that most people suffer from autism and view the world in terms of their needs and desires?
When did I become so skeptical of human nature and I found it difficult to believe the designs of my own species?
Rachna and Siddharth, I can't thank you enough. But if you are reading this I want to you to know- you have returned me more than just my wallet.
24-hour Citiphone Lines
Noida 0120 255 2484
Delhi 95-124-254-2484
Other citibank helpline numbers
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32 comments:
So what if I missed Dhoom-2 for the third time today. It was worth it...
beautiful..
very beautiful !!
~Humanity does exist in the rarest of forms right? ;)~
Nice one ....lucky one ....but you gotta watch Dhoom 2 for Hritik Roshan
tx to the couple...they have restored the faith in humanity....iift da dhaba...miss those days re...really miss em...how i wish time would have stopped right there at that time....i need to tell u something ..'ll call u up n tell before the p.o.n.r comes...
firstly, i must say that u were lucky, in fact very lucky to get ur purse back..
yes, i agree wid u that humanity has not totally lost from the world, there r still a 'few' who follow it.. and i m glad that u cud regain ur faith in it..
nicely written.. and hey, impressive presence of mind when the officer from citibank called ya..
hmmmmmm.....
Should I say you are more than just being lucky.
Yeah you have met two good soul.
And I would lose my wallet if that would give me the chance to meet them.
Lucky you.
Miss it not again. Next time the chance is all mine
You are really lucky.
You were saved from the trauma of watching Dhoom 2!
Hey, don't be hard on yourself for being skeptical. There is a reason that an incident like this becomes a story worth telling :-) BTW, can I critique you for being just a touch too dramatic?
Oh, and from what I heard about Dhoom-2, I guess I will concur with Vinay. Maybe the powers that be were trying to convey some message to save you ;-)
i disagree with arnab.. its really good that u did post it. There ae so few incidents like this around - u r in the minority who actually came across ppl who didnt just say "finders keepers, losers weepers"..
Rachna and Siddharth have proved that we should believe in humanity after all.
'No experience is lost in a black hole if you look at it in proper light’, says Candid Diary.
Btw, why have you provided 24-hour Citiphone Lines at the end of the post? You sure do not expect others to lose their ATM / Debit cards and their wallets?
@candid
I don't "expect" them to. But just in case of an unfortunate circumstance they do, they can refer to the numbers.
I thought it was necessary. Though I should have posted the other helpine numbers too. But then I don't wnat to turn my blog space into yellow pages.
@Saurabh
"After all"??
Dunno..but sure I am glad that it happened to me
@Roshan
One good deed and I can see the effect till now.
@Arnab
Was I?
I guess more drama unfurls in real life than I can put down in mere words.
My apologies if my post reads like a script.
Things like these don't happen everyday.
@vinay
That we will judge after I watch the movie.
As of now, I have no moral burden for having wasted the hard-earned tickets occasioned by the trouble distributors are having with Yash Chopra.
The director Sanjay Gadhvi has no clue what' sgoin gone
Who knew entertainment could be so tiring to access?
@giridharan
May I lose it again. And if u find it, may u long to return it.
The post was meant to be a bit pedantic too.. It has a moral..if u can see it.
Just return the photographs. keep the wallet and the debit card
@aashish
Dunno. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't being duped.
Btw, blogrolled ya...and you can post the link of your blogspace when u use the "other" option to post comments
@saikat
Really missed u guys!
U have no clue how much!
It always feel great to hang out in a group.
We get the feeling we own the world!
Strange isn't it?
The further we chase our dreams, the lonlier we get..
We lose touch of friends, forget numbers, dates..and life seems to pass in a blur.. each day a mere repetition of the other.
Mrigank
Heard so..even the guys were raving mad about him.
But honestly I like Arjun Rampal better.
Hritik gives a pumped up look.
Though the control over his body is awesome. And his dance moves are worth an encore.
prasoon
Rarest?
Depends how u define it...
I met this lady the other day at a shop.
She figured out I had no clue about house-keeping and offered to help me with my shopping.
My specific query about how to clean tiles was answered with a word with caution" Don't use acid. It's corrosive. They 'll harm your hands."
More than anything else, she was a mother. And before she left, she gently patted my head.
I wore a smile long after she was gone.
Gentle souls exist. I just hope I meet them more often.
Just once in a while to remind me of the goodness inherent in each of us.
Is God listening?
Horror gripped the heart of a World War-I soldier, as he saw his
lifelong friend fall in battle. The soldier asked his Lieutenant if
he could go out to bring his fallen comrade back.
"You can go," said the Lieutenant," but don't think it will be worth
it.Your friend is probably dead and you may throw your life away.
"The Lieutenant's words didn't matter, and the soldier went anyway.
Miraculously, he managed to reach his friend, hoisted him onto his
shoulder and brought him back to their company's trench. The officer
checked the wounded soldier, then looked kindly at his friend.
"I told you it wouldn't be worth it," he said. "Your friend is dead
and you are mortally wounded."
"It was worth it, Sir," said the soldier.
"What do you mean by worth it?" responded the Lieutenant. "Your
friend is dead."
"Yes Sir," the soldier answered,
"but it was worth it because when I got to him, he was still
alive and I had the satisfaction of hearing him say....
"Jim...I knew you'd come."
Many times in life, whether a thing is worth doing
or not, really depends on how u look at it. Take up all your
courage and do something your heart tells you to do so that you may
not regret not doing it later in your life........
i can't blv u lost faith in humanity ... however, i'm glad u hd it restored!!!
however, i'm losing faith in software - ur clustrmap doesn't seem to show my location at all :(
@abir
try to see "by world map" in site meter at the top of the main page... :)
Nice posting...Thanks for posting this and tellng everyone that still there is honesty in this world.your writing skills are good too..keep it up
Wow! Such an amazing thing to happen! People still really want to help others!! Very heartening...
And also the post is educational, coz I had no idea banks actually took care of you like that too.. maybe I sound stupid, but still.. pretty cool that they also took care..
As long as there are humans, humanity will survive! :) It's in dire need that humanity usually shines.
Anyways I've heard bad things about Dhoom 2, might have not been worth watching anyway :P.
*off-topic : Please update the link to my blog, it's visualreactor.org now instead .be ... thanka :)
hey Aparna,
well I'll say it's good that you didn't trust the lady over the phone. Unfortunately the fact is indeed many "people suffer from autism and view the world in terms of their needs and desires". You are lucky that you met such nice people who not only took care of your wallet but also took the trouble of returning it back to you. But it could have highly happened that your wallet got into the hands of a fraud. Then after loosing all your money and pics you'd have probably written in your blog something like "when did I start trusting people so much" instead of "when did I become so skeptical of human nature"! ha ha!
You see, the art is to acquire a strong and stable outlook about the society, people and other things around u and not come to such sudden conclusions regaring trusting people. My philosophy is to keep things neutral at first and then gradually develop trust or lack of that.
Btw, I'm pretty new to this place. This is in fact the second time I'm writing a blog(the first being a one I wrote in my own blog-page). So I guess I stsrted it the right way.. did i?
Bye. Be happy, keep smiling!
hi aprana, that was some wonderul experience u had.
feels damm nice when u r met with such surprises in life.
hope u start believing more in people and dn't loose ur faith due to some experiences in past.
was a nice blog. true incident to inspire anyone.
its bryan adams not brian adams..
hi aparna,
I agree with you completely. ; - )
Cheers, Rohit
Hi Aparna,
First of all thanx for putting the link of my blog : Learning From Top Management Gurus (http://management-gurus.blogspot.com/).
Regarding your experience its really nice & encouraging...We (me & my wife) also used to trust everybody & still do but our trust was broken by somebody we trusted a lot. There was a couple by the name Mr. Kapil Dutt Sharma & Mrs. Taruna Sharma & we met in a maternity hospital when my wife & his wife both were admitted there. Kapil was very nice & friendly. He asked my mother about my Birthdate & said he's also born on the same day & year (Now I think it was a lie). Anyways...we became friends & then he introduced me to a MLM scheme (Modicare)..I trusted him & joined...well i spent few thousands bucks in the business trusting him. One fine day I even handed over my credit card to him for ordering some products on my behalf. This guy showed his true colors then & Used my card for his personal purpose...without bothering to ask or even tell me. I got the info when I received the CC Statement. Then I asked him & he said...he was in need. I was shocked at his behavior & then he said he would return the money....He took 5 Months to return 50% of the total amount that too after me calling him up everytime. Now he doesn't pick up my call...If I call up from diff nos. most of the time his wife picks the call & talks as if I have taken a loan from them & not returning....
They not only lost my trust but a friend too.
Since then i m bit sceptical before trusting anybody.
Regards
aparna still there is some honesty left in this world..and u came across ...
@anonymous from "Learning From Top Management Gurus "
It was a pleasure.
I found the site interesting.
BTW, thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Sometimes, we can't afford to be naive...
there's always another side to the coin which we can't overlook.
Unfortunate incident but I assume there has to be some legal action that can be taken...
and u can publish the details of the con here if u want to so that others don't become victims.
@anonymous about "bryan" adams
Thanks for being such a nitpicker. I wonder if u r a virgo like me..anyways I'll get the title in the jukebox corrected as soon as I can...
I just would like to suggest beware of Mr. Kapil Dutt Sharma & Mrs. Taruna Sharma of MODICARE. The Modicare office is in New Friends Colony, New Delhi. They seem to be very sweet & honest but actually they are not..
I am so evil. This is off topic again, but I've tagged you! Now you've gotta write 5 things about yourself, and tag other 5 bloggers to do the same. Do it or else! 0_o
Hi ,
Good blog-Interesting to read.
A piece of unsolicited advice:Revise
thorughly the sentence correction part again if you still have not appeared for the GMAT.
That kills two birds with a single stone:Have actually commented on two of your recent posts by writing once.
@sumukh
Have taken it already and am comfortably through.
I don't proof-read my posts and they might be erroneous at times..thanks for pointing it out though :)
i dont know whether its late or not to post a comment on this blog but what i feel the bottom line was said by Rachna herself as you mentioned in the blog..."she said that fortunately it was found by someone who was not interested in the money"...!!!! and thats the rarest thing you can find these days...!! and yes...to you its definitely more than just getting back your money...! but there are very few who care about others, specially completely unknown people's feelings..! Rachna indeed wasnt interested what was there inside the wallet but she might have been ignorant about returning it to you...!! i dont think you were proven wrong....but you were lucky to get the right combination in Rachna...!!!
I totally agree to your view that like you have forgotton that "Balcony in Theatre" still excist, in the same manner these days we have also forgotton the word "Humanity"...
Something similar to yours also haapend to us, while we went to Rajasthan, read the full details @ http://anshulpage.blogspot.com/2007/03/trip-poori-filmy-thi.html
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