The key that was never lost but I was!

“Hey! Do you have our room keys? I will reach tomorrow around 10 AM. I spoke with your friend, he told me it’s with you,” said the voice at other side of the call.

“I don’t remember any key! Can you ask my friend where he has kept it if he had received any?”

“He said, my other roommate had given it to you…”

That was the part of conversation I was having around 7PM yesterday with a fellow mate who lives at the top floor. ‘Did I received their room keys?’, ‘were they with me still?’ are questions that ran my mind in a swish but their answers weren’t quite clear. It could be that I had received them but I was sure of nothing!

The incident goes back to few days. It was the month of Ramzaan (also called Ramadan is a month in Islamic calendar where they fast from dawn to dusk). I live with a friend who was practicing it and so were all the inhabitants of the top floor. As the month comes to end, they all celebrate it on Eid-ul-Fitr. The day I know from my childhood as the day of Kababs, Biryani, Sevaiyya; of all the delicacies the final day is known for. Forget them for I got none thanks to my work which has kept me away from home. So all my friends were going to their homes for Eid one by one. The last person to go home from the top floor (not the one I spoke on phone) comes to our room one day and hands me few stuffs, which included a bike key and the fabled room key too (or so does my memory tells me). He tells me to give them to my roommate who was yet to go home. When my friend arrives little later I tell him about all this and he promptly takes the stuff into our room from the hall (one more guy who I have never talked with stays in hall but was not present that day).

Days pass like all usual. My friend too packs to his home after few days and I’m left with myself all alone. I watch the shows which were pending, roam a few places; everything is normal until yesterday evening when the guy calls me asking for the keys.

After his call, I dial my friend’s number and we have a verbal quick brawl trying to shift the blame on one of us in which we both but fail. I’m kind of pissed by now after searching under the pillow, bed, top of the cupboard, all usual places we both keep anything which is as important as keys! They are nowhere to be found. Then a sudden thought flies into my memory, “Why am I losing my cool, why am I searching hastily the keys of OTHER person and wasting MY energy! Look, I searched for them at all possible places but didn’t found them. Over.” With this thought I head to doing what I was doing earlier — watching shows, surfing net and later having my food. Again the counter thought hits me, “he will require the keys tomorrow. They gave you the keys not to find them lost later but to keep them safe…” And I’m back to being crazy again. I pull both beds out, go under the cot, search all trouser pockets, open all the drawers but all in vain; the key is in no mood to be found. And I’m lost again. In between I inquire with the guy in hall because it was his bed on which the other guy from top floor had kept the stuff including keys and, from his bed my friend had taken them into our room. He too lifts his bed and searches all over the place but again, it’s nowhere there.

It’s around midnight now. I’m sleepy. I try to sleep with the first thought mumbling into my head, it’s none of my business but after an hour or so into sleep and second thought wakes me up — the keys were given to me for safeguarding them and not to lose them. In between I had texted both — my friend saying it’s you who might have messed with them and that it’s your headache now to worry about his keys, and to the calling guy saying I’m unable to find his keys but none of them bother to reply! I again pull myself to sleep but a dream where the calling guy comes in the morning and asks me for the keys saying he has important day at work and it’s important that he gets hold of the keys to enter his room. I wake up again to search for the unlucky keys but fail at it again. Later some idea strikes me around 3'O clock and I take all my room and cupboard keys, climb the stairs to top floor and stand at their door like some grumpy thief. I try to unlock their door but not so surprisingly none succeed in their resolve to open the damn lock. I’m lost now, completely.

I have never worried as such even when I had lost precious things of my own but this was not my own and that had kept me like crazy. It all felt like I was so careless and all the damn words that could define someone who had lost something valuable to someone which was given to him for safeguarding. Moreover it wasn’t some gadget or stuff that I could purchase and solve the mystery of its missing; it was this damn key! My sleep-wake-sleep cycle continues until 6AM and little while later, after which thank god I somehow catch up a straight good night’ sleep until 9 in the morning when my alarm wakes me up. The storm is still lurking inside me for its matter of an hour or so when the guy would storm in and ask for the key. I plan to get ready early and head to office. Damn the key and the guy, tells my super-conscious being. As usual I take the brush and starts to take a walk in the balcony brushing my teeth with the speed which I usually don’t and then some voice calls my name from behind,

“You just woke up?”

It’s the guy who will ask for the keys now, the question is just a starter! I plunge my apology before he shoots his question, “Hey! I searched your keys whole night but they are nowhere to be found. Am really…”

He mumbles something before I finish my apology…

“Hey no, no… It’s fine. The key is with owner. I called him yesterday and he told me so!”

Dammit! The key for which I lost my cool, sleep, whole night was never in my possession. I was searching for something which was never mine. Such is life! 

We all worry for things which are not worth our worries, people who never were ours and will never be ours!

Why do I tell this piece from my personal life? All because of the potholes it contains. The communication it lacks which if was made successfully could have saved much of my hours and energy. Not that it’s his or my friend’s problem. May be I too got little more tensed than necessary. We all do it except few lucky ones who excel at the art of handling their being; rest we all let it loose to wonder like it wishes which at times proves lucky but otherwise costs a fortune…