My childhood days are peppered with stories of "lost and found". Growing up during the late 70s of the previous century, memories of loosing umbrellas and finding them in the sleepy town of Mangalore (now Mangaluru) are fresh even now.
As it rained ‘cats and dogs’ in Mangaluru, I carried an umbrella with a rough rattan handle, which was taller than me, to school. I was teased and called Ajjeru (an elderly person) for carrying one. But when opened, my large umbrella could shelter three souls like me under it.
Once, on a rainy day I had to attend a funeral and I went there straight from my school with the umbrella and came back home. After an hour, my umbrella reached home thanks to a friend’s brother, who knew the owner by the handle.
On another rainy day, I carried another one to school -- a folding one gifted to my sister by her classmate who had recently returned from Oman. After the class, since it was raining heavily, I came home in bus, Route No 5. I reached home but my umbrella went to the last stop. A good scolding later, I went to the bus stop; spent Rs 20 for cha and Parandpodi in return for the umbrella. The conductor, an acquaintance, cautioned me Kode, joke (Umbrella, careful).
Very soon, I became famous as the ‘umbrella loser’. An elderly woman who lived near my school advised me, in rustic Tulu, "Don’t lose your character like your umbrellas". I considered it a lesson.
Though there were new, and branded, umbrellas at home, I was permitted to use only the old ones. Later, an aunt gave me money to buy a new one, which was left in Route Number 19 on the same day, while hurriedly getting down at my stop. During the first two years of my college, I must have lost four.
As I progressed to higher classes, I stopped carrying one. I even politely refused to accept one from a friend, a brand new one brought from Muscat. I had recently lost another at a hotel. While a student in New Delhi, I continued to lose: one in Route Number 666 and another at a dhaba inside the campus.
I picked up an umbrella once from a bunch kept at a wedding, slyly. As I stepped out, a friend took it and said: “Thanks pal, for finding my umbrella” and walked away.
When I saw a boy with an umbrella, twice his size in Mysore when the city received torrential rains recently, courtesy 'Asani', memories of my umbrella stories came flooding back.