"I've lost my baggage, have you lost yours too?"

Hey! 

Welcome to my blog; Eshwar Aakula is the name. A little about me; I am a student who loves acting. Besides being an actor, I am also an amateur cook, a writer and a poet. I reside in Bangalore, India. I also have an Instagram page named twoo_hungry_guys where I review foods available in different areas as well as give out recipes to homemade food; the latter part being the outcome of quarantine. 

That’s all about me. I hope you would enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoyed writing them. 

Majority of the blogs I write shall be the encounters I had in my life and the lessons I had learnt from them, hopefully these stories don't sound like lectures to you, neither am I an renowned writer or a proclaimed philosopher, these encounters are an amalgamation of humour and curiosity, hope they keep you occupied through the reading.

Thank you in advance.

It was the morning of 15th January, I had just received the confirmation tickets to Kottayam, Kerala, this was my second trip to the god's own country and I was pretty excited, except for the fact that the purpose of this visit was purely for a competition, I was representing my university as a student of marketing, the day was Sankranthi, the harvest festival and the tickets only added to the celebrations, it was the first time I was going out of town on educational purposes, sounds weird I know, all the previous journeys were either just a leisure trip or for a theatre performance.

Late evening, I started packing for the next day's travel in a big red trekking bag my dad had bought for me while I was in 8th grade, for a school trip to Kerala, yes the bag was revisiting Kerala, I packed all the essentials and I was ready to go, only God knew I was up for a bitter but funny experience.

The next evening I'm boarding the non stop bus to Kottayam in Madivala along with my fellow mates and the guide/helper of the bus stated that we can drop our non essential bag in the trunk of the bus and so did we.

We got inside the sleeper bus and me, along with my dear friends Anmol mattoo, and Dipti got seats next to each other and found the golden opportunity to chat all night, we stopped at some place for dinner and had the infamous Kerala parotta for dinner, we got in and burnt the night oil gossiping about our classmates.

Next day 5 AM we are dropped at Kottayam, the bus was full of students for the management so I must say 80% percent of the travellers got down at the same destination, the helper/guide opened the trunk and all my friends took their bags or suitcases, but when I reached out to my red trekking bag, it was gone!! Nowhere to be found, it's the trunk of a bus, it's pretty huge and dark too, my friends along with the helper searched everywhere while I panicked, I broke into a cold sweat and the humidity was only adding on to the misery, I started questioning everyone who got off the bus of they had mistakenly taken a red bag, all I got were a bunch of 'no's, no one carried a red bag from their house, further I questioned the helper and he quoted "this is the first time I'm opening the trunk" this was difficult to decipher, the trunk had no holes too, I was imagining the worst case scenarios, Anmol said I must question the passengers inside the bus if they had taken my bag inside the bus while we got down for dinner so I went inside and questioned each of them but again no positive responses, by this time the driver was pretty frustrated and told that he must be leaving soon or else the remaining passengers can't reach their destination on time, by now my friend Anmol mattoo had clicked a picture passengers list, and the bus left.

Next we went to a hotel nearby and everyone had coffee/tea, I was not in the mood and didn't have anything, I was worried about my bag, all my friends started calming me down and Sam suggested that first we must concentrate on the fest and the bag will eventually be found, so we reached our dormitory and everyone started bathing, I had no choice but to stay in my tracks and t shirt.

That's when my friend Anmol mattoo offered his clothes saying that he had an extra pair, to my astonishment, they fit me well, I was indeed lucky to have a guy of the same size, I wore his clothes, his sports shoes and attended the fest, I was skeptical about the attendance as I looked hideous and the reputation of my university was at stake but on reaching the college, I found myself better than many of them.

The day went well until afternoon, we were treated and tested well, I gave my best shot in the competition, we were being served authentic Kerala food and we started calling everyone on the list, by this time the helper had informed that a small red bag remained unclaimed even after everyone got down and the bag contains sarees, this information was a reliever, we stroke off all the male names on the list and started calling all the females. My question was "I've lost my baggage,have you lost yours too ?"

The first lady said she hasn't seen any red bags, the second one said she too got down at Kottayam and witnessed my drama in the morning, the third call was to the lady's dad who also denied that there were no red bags, the fourth call was when we hit the target, an old lady who only spoke Malayalam, thanks to my friend Roy, we found out that she had picked my red bag and found out only after reaching her house that the bag contains only shirts and pants which she never wore all her life, she had gotten down 10kms before us and now she can't come all the way for the bag, I kept on asking everyone if we can go pick it and that's when Akshita, the girl from Kottayam said she'd help me, she was my saviour for that day, she traveled around 30kms to and fro to the Kottayam main bus stand to where the grandma had sent my bag to, thanks to all my friends.

File photo 

Source : Unsplash

The next day I attended the fest in crisp clothes and a blazer, but unfortunately we were second runners, results apart, I learnt a lesson the hard way, to never place my luggage in the trunk of a bus irrespective of my bus, I was never happier in my life when I saw the red bag, a non living thing had brought my life back!