I must admit that I love everything that is mutually contradictory. Like oxymorons. What do I mean by that? Well, if two things completely negate each other so that if one is true or valid, the other must be untrue or invalid, and you mention them together in the same syntax, you will get my immediate attention.
Hence one can easily predict that if I am asked to choose between a salty or a sweet dish, but there is also something under the option of sweet/salty, I will go for the third selection. You know, like spicy chicken wings dipped in honey-sauce or scoops of salted and caramelized ice-cream.
In a similar vein, if there ever is a co-existence of light and shade, heat and cold, demure and outrageous or comic and tragic within my periphery of vision, I find myself actively seeking it.
Therefore, the ‘Lost and Found’ counter in international airports has interested me greatly. During all my years of relentless travelling, I would read the board announcing its location but never had the time to explore it. But as a theory, I like the idea of lost and found. It has a philosophical ring to it and as a mutually contradictory concept, it is right on top with oxymorons, like feeling sadly happy or actively lazy or passively aggressive.
It is also rather fairytale-ish, with hope attached, as in whatever is lost has the potential to be found. Somewhere. Someday.
And so, when it was my turn to misplace my hand luggage two weeks ago at the Duty Free area of Terminal 5 in Heathrow airport, I went into instant panic. I mean, one minute I was browsing around the single malt section, trying to understand how so many Japanese brands had entered the market and whether it was too early in the morning to take a swig from the taster-cup, and the next moment, my cabin bag was gone. Swiped from literally under my nose!
I automatically followed all the steps that people with lost luggage do – asked the salespeople if they saw my bag, tried to hold back tears, reported my missing bag to the uniformed personnel with a walkie-talkie, denied having left it unattended, focussed on remembering what was in it, picked up a fight with spouse, and let the tears roll down my cheeks this time.
Twenty minutes passed in this futile activity till the airline officials came around to insist that we board immediately. Once inside the aircraft, I saw a message flash on my phone which was thankfully still with me. Our son-in-law had sent an online link which he urged me to fill out without delay. I followed the instructions feeling utterly dejected, clicked send, and completed the rest of my journey in silent despair.
Seven days later, when I had given up all hope, I got an email from the Lost Property department at Heathrow. They had found my cabin bag, and I could collect it from them after depositing a small fee! Miracles do happen, said the voice in my head, as my eyes welled up with tears all over again.
“This is good news, Mum”, our daughter was on the phone.
“The best ever”, I sniffed back.
“Why you crying then?” she questioned.
“I am sadly happy, no, I am happily sad”, I stammered.
“You know what you are?” she asked.
“Tell me”, I said.
“A walking talking Oxymoron”, she laughed.
