Leaving home early, we collected my mother-in-law's passport, handed in earlier for renewal, from the Passport Office. That done, my wife decided on shopping.

You know what that means for the driver, stopping the car in front of every shop and then moving forwards and backwards to dodge the cop enforcing the no-parking rule while the women are at their favourite pastime.

Finally, with lunch-hour approaching, I was driving home, when my wife, rummaging through her handbag on a sudden impulse, exclaimed, “the passport is gone! Exhausted and hungry as I was, the loss of a passport with a US “Green Card” was the last straw.  

Reversing track, our search began with the Passport Office. No success. We then drove to the shops we had visited, waited out the lunch break, but drew blank again. “Every scrap of paper is picked up and handed in at the counter,” was the assuaging explanation.

The Officer at the local police station listened to us patiently. He ordered the “beat constable” to walk up and down the street where we had shopped and make “searching” inquiries, assuring us that if the passport had dropped there, it would be traced.

But the honourable gentleman returned empty-handed. It was turning to evening. The officer took my written complaint. “We will do our best,” he said, with a fatal rider, “but lost passports often vanish from view the very next day!”That was it!

Passing a Hanuman temple, I stopped the car in front for an instant, muttered a fervent prayer and moved on. We reached home late in the evening, ate an early dinner and retired to bed.

Around nine in the night, the telephone rang. The man at the other end started an inquisition, checking my name, my mother-in-law’s, where we were that morning, the make and number of my car. He then introduced himself, and explained he happened to pass through the same street as we did in the morning.

He saw my car pulling out leaving behind a dark blue thing. It was my mother-in-law’s passport with my name and telephone number as a local referee. He asked if I would pick it up or should it be reached to me? I said I would spare him the trouble. I had thought that deus ex machina or divine intervention happens only in stories!