When Aditya
found the bangle, he was travelling alone.
He was the
first passenger to arrive at that gate at the Dubai International Airport. He
called Amrita.
“Hi. I have
cleared immigration and the flight is on time.”
“Good. Happy
and safe travels.”
“I will miss
you.”
“Me too.”
After she
had hung up, Aditya fiddled with his phone ‘googling’ for touristy information about
Bangalore where he was going on official work for a week.
About half
an hour later, there was a call for the passengers to start boarding. It was
then that he noticed the bangle. It lay
half hidden under his back pack. He wondered how he didn’t notice it when he
sat there.
Apparently,
it didn’t belong to any of his co-passengers because he was the only person
sitting on that row of chairs. He looked around and waited. Then, without any
hesitation, he picked it up and put it in his little pouch in which carried his
important documents like passport and boarding pass.
Later, in
the quietness of his hotel room in Bangalore, he fished it out and looked at it
carefully. It was golden and shone in the bedside lamp. The design was plain
and quite worn out with constant use. From its size and pattern, it certainly
did not belong to a young woman. It would perfectly fit a stout middle-aged or
old matron with thick set arms. It puzzled him to think that such a lady could
lose a golden bangle like this and not notice it.
The
underside of the bangle had an inscription like a jeweller’s mark. Perhaps it
belonged to a maid working in one of the wealthy Emirati families, taking care
of their numerous offspring while her own children were sent to a boarding
school in India. Or it may have belonged to a rich old lady who had come to
visit her daughter’s family in Dubai.
When he
returned to Dubai after his trip, he showed the bangle to Amrita.
“Didn’t you
ask around?” she asked.
“There was
no need. I was sure it did not belong to any of the passengers who travelled
with me. The lady to whom it belonged had probably travelled on an earlier
flight” he said.
“You could
have reported it to the authorities” she said.
“I didn’t
think that it would be easy for the authorities to locate the owner” he said.
“Hmm...
seems like it belongs to an elderly lady” Amrita said, closely examining the
bangle.
“That’s what
I thought too. I wonder what we should do with it” he said.
After much
discussion they decided to get it changed for a bracelet to give to a poor girl
in their village who was soon to be married. They didn’t keep the bangle along
with their other gold jewellery.
At the
jeweller’s, they handed the bangle over and told the old man behind the counter
to check the gold because they wished to exchange it for something else. The
man came back after a few minutes.
“Does this
bangle belong to you or your family?” he asked.
Aditya and
Amrita looked at each other.
“No” Aditya
replied firmly.
“It isn’t
gold” said the old man shaking his head.
A wave of relief swept across their faces and
they told the story of the bangle to the jeweller.
Later, back
home, Aditya kept the bangle in the drawer in which he kept things for
potential thieves to steal.
