Pickpocketed

It was gonna be a fun saturday evening, an opportunity to regroup with old college buddies and crack a few PJ's , discuss about some new venture , play dumb charades and many such things. The time was fixed at 6:00 PM and as always people expected me to see atleast at 6:30 PM . But I had an immediate cousin visiting my house and I started a bit late.

Now the place where we all were gonna meet was about 40 minutes from my house which included around 20 minutes of rail journey through the ever crowded Mumbai local train. I was at the Thane Station wondering when my Train would arrive as there were no trains for the place I was heading to for the past 10 minutes and obviously the platform was crowded with many persons seeking to catch the train. I managed to sneak in front of other people so that I could be one of those first souls to get inside the compartment . Now I have this practice of just checking my wallet ( kept in the pants) before I catch a train and then just when I am inside the compartment. As the train arrived at the station lots of people alighted from the train and double the number of people boarded the train. As soon as I managed to step inside the compartment I just patted my pant pockets only to find my wallet missing. I though to myself that I must have not checked the pockets properly. In plain words I was hoping for a miracle. But alas it was not to be ! I had lost many a thing including my library card , railway pass and of course my debit card. Cash of course !

At that moment nothing struck my mind than blocking my all important debit card . So I immediately sms'ed a friend to provide me the customer service number of a reputed bank. In jet speed I had the number and I was trying to get through the IVRS to talk to the bank representative. Finally after 5 minutes I was connected to a representative who took more than 30 minutes to block the card because he was not able to verify my name ( One which can give Vangilapuram Venkata Sai Laxman a complex ) . I was trying to keep my cool but then WTF aren't the customer service reps trained to search using multiple options. Or are banks using the banking software developed by the East India Company ? I queried as to who would be responsible in case my debit was misused . The representative just kept on saying that he was helpless and gave me all that empathy crap. So finally reluctantly I had to call my folks at home to get the account number and get it blocked. Finally the issue was resolved . But the representative while closing the call also added that since I was a lucky ( any takers ?? ) and the chosen one I would be soon receiving a international debit card within 10 working days.

The evening carried on with me reliving my college days of borrowing money from my friends . In my 6 years of traveling the local trains never has been a instance of my wallet being pickpocketed and always believed that the probability of me being the target of such an act would be extremely remote . But all that has changed for me and traveling in trains is not the same anymore !