My fling with Karma! Based on a real life experience..

The year was 2016 if I remember right. I had gone to play a tournament in Bhopal. We had already finished the tournament when my teammates and I decided to go for a late night movie. 

On finishing the movie we took a ric back to our hotel. It was already 1:30 a.m by then. After a bit of negotiation we got in the ric. Only one of my teammates who was also sharing the hotel room with me was with me in that ric.

Upon entering, I noticed that the ric driver was an old man. I was a little amused to find an old man still working so late in the night. I casually asked, ” Arre Chacha (Uncle)! You’ve still not gone home?” It’s quite late, you know!” He softly said, ” Kya kare beta (What to do son)? I can’t afford to go home!” I was curious upon hearing him and immediately asked him why. He said, ” My daughter’s at the hospital, suffering from breast cancer. The hospital authority has asked me to pay 4000 bucks by tomorrow morning for my daughter’s operation.” Upon saying that he started sobbing. I felt really bad for him at the same time a bit scared as we were still in a moving ric while he sobbed. I said, ” Chacha, don’t cry! How much have you earned till now?” “Just about 1500!” He replied. 

After about five minutes of silence, I reached out to my back pocket and took out my wallet. I had three 500 rupee notes in it and some change. I removed the notes and asked my teammate if he can give me another 500 rupee note. He immediately took out and gave it to me. Upon thanking him, I folded the notes together, kept them on my right palm and placed it on the old driver’s shoulder. “Chacha, yeh rakh lo (keep it).” I said and gave all the four notes to him. He took the notes, glanced at them and put it in his shirt pocket. “Shukriya (Thanks) beta (son)! May Allah bless you both!” He said.

We didn’t interact much with him after that as we didn’t want to distract him from riding. It was late in the night after all with some of the parts of the road really dark.

As we reached our hotel, he said thank you once again while we got down from the ric. We just said ‘never mind’ and wished a speedy recovery to his daughter. We entered the hotel as he left. As I got into the lift, I put my hand in the front pocket of my trouser. I intended to take out my  room key when I realised that it was missing. I searched the other pockets immediately. Not there. I asked my teammate to look in his. Not there as well. By then we reached the floor of our hotel room but instead of getting out we immediately pressed the ‘lobby’ button of the lift. As we went down, we ran towards the main gate to check if the ric driver was still waiting around. Nope. He was long gone. Feeling a bit let down, we went to the reception to ask for the duplicate key. “We’ve lost our room key. We don’t know where we dropped it. Might have been in the ric we came by or in the movie theatre itself. We’re not sure.” I informed the receptionist. 

The receptionist was quick to let us know that they didn’t have a duplicate key. “What?!” I asked. “Are you saying that we have to either spend the entire night in the lobby or in somebody else’s room?” I asked again, irritated with how the situation was going from bad to worse. “Sorry sir. Also the loss of key comes under the “damage of properties” rule of our hotel as we’d have to break the lock tomorrow. You’d have to pay a fine for it, the exact sum of which I’d tell you by tomorrow.” The receptionist promptly replied. I nodded my head and just told him the room number where we’d be spending the night in and that he should immediately tell me in the morning when the lock problem gets sorted out. We had no choice but to spend the night in one of the rooms of my other teammates.  

By that time, I was literally losing my mind. I thought to myself, ‘Karma! My foot! Such an overrated word!’ Feeling helpless, we slowly went towards the lift to go up. As we went up to one of the rooms, I was mentally preparing myself to somehow get through the night. Getting a good night’s sleep was out of question as we would be four in one room. I started to feel guilty upon ringing the doorbell as it was not only awkward for me to ask but problematic for the others as well. Moreover, that sickening feeling of ‘did good to someone and got punished rather than anything’ was eating me from within. 

My teammate rang the bell. He explained everything and we slowly got into the room. As we entered the phone rang as well. One of the teammates picked up the phone and after a minute gave it to my roommate. He took the phone and said, “Hello! Yeah tell me. Is it? Oh thank you. We’re coming.” By the time he hung up his face was gleaming with joy. With a big smile he said, ” Bhaiya (Brother), let’s go down! They got the key.” I was overjoyed to hear that at the same time a little curious as well. ‘How?’ I thought to myself.

We quickly went down by the lift and straight to the reception. The gave a broad smile upon seeing us. “Sir, security guard from the main entrance came in and gave me the key just now. He said, one old ric driver came, gave it to him and said he had dropped a couple of passengers at this hotel a while ago and that might be their key. Aap logo ka luck acha hai sir ( You guys are lucky).”

I was ecstatic to hear that as well as a bit astonished. It was a very unique feeling which words can hardly describe. ‘Karma! You idiot! Never doubt it.’ I thought with the most satisfying of a smile. 

Om Shanti…..?