Lost & found

Was out in a restaurant with my family and came out to talk to my sister over phone. Out of the blue i felt an itchy sensation in my right eye so, i rubbed it and lost my partial vision achanak se. Lens pehna tha, gir gaya. Tried my level best (or so i thought) to search for it where i was strolling around on the south bombay streets. Went to the wash basin area to try cleaning my gradually reddening eye with a hope that the lost lens will magically fall in my palms lol. The waiters and the chefs were watching me struggle and two of them voluntarily joined my lens-hunt, an almost near to impossible project of finding a sparkly vulnerable-to-adhesion lens near a sparkly clean washbasin area. I was 98% sure that it must have fallen on the footpath at the ingress of the restaurant but i had to try everywhere i had rubbed my eye. I wore my classic old spects and after we were done, i searched again, my brother too joined in. And as we were doing the seemingly impracticable search, the waiters joined us again-- this time, outside the restaurant. My aatya was like, "leave it, how are you gonna find it anyways, it must have been gone by now!" We were searching anyways with a bleak hope and after some time, gave up. BUT one of the waiters kept searching..whilst all sort of estimations were being discussed in the background.."maybe it must have adhered to someone's footwear by now or got broken because someone stepped their foot on it and crumbled it or it must have gotten dirty enough to be incapable of another use ever and so onnn"...Long back, my daddu had told me this Marathi tale of भैरा बेडूक wherein the frog who's deaf unlike other frogs who pay heed to the distractions because they can hear, ultimately wins the race. I saw something like this in that waiter. He didn't listen to our wavering bullshit trash talk but kept searching EVEN WHEN IT WASN'T HIS LENS it was fuckin mine! And i was complacent enough to second guess everything. Guess what, HE FOUND IT. It had shrunken but I can bring it back to life by keeping it overnight in the cleaning solution. No harm. The point is, he could have said to himself "it's not my job, they are searching outside, not my arena, anyways it's so hard to find a transparent lens...forget it"..he could have judged me saying "how irresponsible" or gossip about me and my family with his friends! Or whatever!! But he offered to help.

We immediately gave him a 100 rupee tip although this can't be measured in money. It was just a gesture of gratitude for his selfless service. But I would rephrase it. I don't think he was selfless or whatever. I think, he saw a situation, probably saw it as a challenge, he made it his own, and he was relentless. That's it. He will reach heights for such an optimistic and resilient attitude. I hope he treasures it and uses it to his benefit, cause it will automatically reverberate in his surrounding and benefit others as well.

Lastly, I asked his name..."Imtiyaz.." I said, "thanks Imtiyaz bhai, god bless you." (As if this is gonna change anything lol-- well that was the least i could..money comes n goes!)

I felt a little ashamed of myself, as in spite of it being my problem, I was less optimistic and more underconfident. I couldn't focus ALL my energy into finding the lens but got myself stuck in the subconscious whining loop where i felt embarassed of myself that i lost the lens and that i m so irresponsible sometimes, i lost my money..blah blah blah..instead of really trying my 100%. I need to fuckin change this attitude!! Have to stop the inner naysayer me from existing!! Gotta butcher it. Plain and simple. For me, it was a reminder that i still need to grow into a lot more optimistic and relentless person. Can't call myself even a 60% of that anymore. The bar is higher now. Longg wayyyy to gooo!!!