It was my daughter Neeti’s first day at her new job. It was Monday and I
was carrying a bearable sinus head ache. I took Jaggu, my dog, for a walk and
by the time I returned Shubha, my wife, had left for her usual hour-long walk.
I began to watch live Copa America match. Then, I get a call on my land line.
It was from Shubha's cousin Vrinda, who is vacationing near Mangalore. She
asked me for Shubha and when I told her that she had gone for a walk, she said
she had a missed call from her and wanted knows why she called. I said I had no
clue and asked her call her as she was carrying her phone. She said she tried
but couldn’t get her and hung up saying she would try again. I was back to
watching soccer. Few minutes later my sister called me and she repeated same
story as Vrinda’s. She said she had been trying her mobile and was continuously
busy and hence she called the landline. I again, expressed, rather jokingly, my
ignorance about this or the latest gossip Shubha possibly wanted to share with
her! I then decided to call her myself. But, I didn't remember her number and
my phone was upstairs near the bed. I felt bit lazy to go and the match was
getting interesting and then, Shubha has gone only for about 20 minutes! “Let
me wait" I said to myself! 15minutes later Neeti came home. She was in the
same mental status as of a rushing morning -office-goer. She got busy with
herself and wanted know when the mother would return and that she wanted
breakfast and mentioned in passing
that there was a missed call from mother on her cell. That got me
wondering as to how many people my wife wanted to talk to while walking?! Then
I decided to call her from my phone. I did and as others said, the phone
sounded busy. I Waited for a while and dialed again. Busy! Neeti too tried calling. Busy again. I called
Kriti, my elder daughter, to check if Shubha had called her. She said no and I
mentioned to her about missed calls and her phone being constantly busy. She
said she would try calling her. I got busy again with Neeti in making her
breakfast. I was, till then, in denial
of any "untowards”! It's about an hour and Shubha had not returned home
yet, she has been calling people and trying to reach her had been unsuccessful.
Shubha walks on the road or pavement and not in any park. She goes in different
direction each time! Then, a tinge of worry crept into us! We thought of trying to "Geo-locate” her
through her phone so that I could look for her in that direction. Neeti
downloaded app for that. But, it didn't work. Probably because, the location
service wasn't turned on in Shubha's phone. By then Kriti had tried reaching
her many times in vain. Kriti generally rushes to hit "panic button"
faster than Neeti or me (Shubha has always been the first!) and she did! She
wanted me to go police station to lodge a complaint. I told her that we would
wait for some more time as the police would say the same. I pulled my bike out to look for her. I knew
it was a long-shot. She could have gone for the walk in any direction. I sensed a bit of déjà vu then . I was just hoping I would be
as lucky as last time.
The "last time" is an incident that took place while my mother in
law( MIL) was staying with us for few days just about a year ago.MIL liked to walk on the road in front of the
house uphill and downhill couple times almost every day. As she was getting
weaker both physically and mentally, Shubha had restricted her to walk only
inside the house (from the open front door to back door with front gates
closed). One day, I was at home reading newspaper, Shubha had gone for her walk
and MIL was walking across the living room. She asked me little later if she
could walk on the road that day. I said ok assuming the road was empty and
breaking Shubha's rule was a minor foible which I could explain later! I opened
the gate, saw MIL going out and I went about reading. 20 minutes must have
passed by and Shubha returned from her walk and looked around asked me where
her mother was? I said, to her utter annoyance, that I had let her walk because
she wanted to! She went out cursing me to get her and came back a minute or so
later saying she couldn’t find her. I told her that she was probably on the
side street on which she used walk sometimes. She rushed to that street too and
came back with same answer. That’s when I pulled my bike out to look for my
MIL. I luckily found her few minutes later walking up a steep uphill, visibly tired
and in the opposite direction of our home. When I asked her where she heading,
she said “where else? Home!"
I was lucky that time. MIL walks slowly and it was not too long before we
realized that she was missing.
But, unlike her mother, Shubha walks fast and had been away for more than
an hour! Where to look for her?! Neeti had leave for work and she left (wishing
me good luck!). Kriti went emotional and was rushing to our house. Then, I
started my bike and went few meters down and turned left (To right, few meters
down is the police station!). There!! I
saw her walking smilingly towards me- surprisingly with the phone in her hand!!
I angrily pointed at her to look into the phone (I believe she had just then
pulled her phone from her pocket). She looked my face and then at her phone and
noticed her son-in-law Mark calling on her phone. She panicked for a moment
thinking something terrible had happened and we were trying to reach her
desperately! She must have felt relieved when Mark explained to her the gist of the whole saga.
While Shubha was walking, the phone was in her pants’ side pocket and in
the silent mode. Something, probably friction( or the devil!), triggered it to
go into this crazy action where it kept dialing few numbers all by itself one
after the other, possibly without a
break and of course, without Shubha being aware of it. My daughter told me that
there is a term for it, “butt-dialing"! That term would have been more
appropriate if the phone were to be in Shubha's hip pocket instead of side
pocket! Flipside (Butt side?!) of technology! It might have happened to all of
us, of course, with hardly any consequences. We play with it all the time and
probably, it was Smart phone’s “payback time”! Had my wife left her phone at
home, we or at least I, would have missed the drama!
