Losing My Phone in Mumbai

The best part of my 10 days in Mumbai earlier this year, hands down, was losing my trusty Samsung A20. Quite how I did it I don't know and never will; it is entirely likely that I carelessly dropped it in an auto, but I have a friend who is adamant it must have been pickpocketed. Either way, you can imagine the lurching horror of the first hour or so after I realised, turned my bag inside out and watched my life flash in front of my eyes, so I won't go into it, because what happened next was some of the best fun I have ever had in my life.

Firstly, the hotel receptionist recommended that we report the matter to the police; this is something I would never do in the UK because I have never personally known them to solve a crime, even by accident. We were on holiday though, so what was the harm? We went to the police stand at Juhu Beach, which was staffed by a disgruntled police officer and an efficient soldier, who took over and packed my mother and I into an auto to go to the station.

Once there, we had no idea what to do. There was nothing resembling a reception desk and there was what seemed to be a large queue of people waiting to make reports. We hovered. The large queue turned out to be one family with one complaint, so as they filed into an office, we claimed a seat and expected a long wait. Smart-looking officers (the Indian police uniform is a million times better than the British one) occasionally came down the stairs and looked at us worriedly. Their expressions were internationally recognisable as either 'oh no, more work' or 'oh no, I have to speak English'.

Just as we were beginning to think there was some process we hadn't followed and we were going to be there all night, one brave constable came over and said "Complaint hai, kya?" When I replied in the affirmative, he scurried off into the main office, presumably to debate about who was going to have to deal with The Tourists.

The officer who took my details had drawn a short straw and wasn't afraid to show his displeasure. A noisy fan on his desk ensured us minimum opportunity to understand each other. As usual, I was wondering whether to show my cards, i.e. my carefully cultivated almost-Hindi, but this was still early in the trip and these were the Police, so I decided against it. Instead, I engaged in an argument about my age, which the officer flattered me by deciding must be 25 (actually 35) and wrote down the difficult-to-spell Scottish names and places that afflicted us. He asked for my husband or father's name; I said Donald. He wrote it with a T at the end; I said D; he wrote T again. I finally convinced him it was D and we moved on. I don't know why I didn't write it down; perhaps I thought Trump had made 'Donald' an international word. When I got my copy of the report at the end, my father's name was 'Ponald'. I had a vision of someone calling my parents' home and asking for Ponald; this made me laugh so much I am still recovering from my injuries.

A handsome and enthusiasic officer arrived to explain everything to us; he was the English Expert of the station and very happy about it. He grinned the whole time. His accent was beyond adorable; he spoke English with the staccato rhythm of Marathi, making it five times more charming but admittedly difficult to follow. Nevertheless, he got it through to us that we were to be accompanied back to our hotel by TWO more police staff, who would watch the CCTV of our hotel, to try to see the auto that had dropped us off last. Our working theory was that this was where I had lost my phone. I do not know if this is Tourist Treatment or standard Indian policing, but I was awestruck.

I finally got my Hindi out to explain where the auto had dropped us, which made the whole process ten times easier and set a precedent of Doing My Best for the rest of the trip. What's the worst that can happen if someone doesn't understand you, really? You're not going to be arrested for bad pronunciation.

The CCTV turned out not to allow playback without the hotel managers say-so, so sadly they had a wasted trip, unless earning the endless admiration of a couple of Scottish women is of some value to them.

Interestingly, while my phone never showed up, I googled Juhu Police Station later and found this image, proving it is worth reporting a lost phone in Juhu!

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The next day I began suffering from Empty Hand Syndrome, the acute form of smartphone withdrawal. After a few hours I snapped, and decided that I simply had to buy a phone. When we saw a shop that sold them, I walked in, took a deep breath, and asked for their cheapest smartphone in Hindi. The shop owner was delighted with my little speech, and so was I. I was speaking Hindi in Real Life!

I promptly handed over the cash for the phone, and then discovered that I wasn't allowed to buy a SIM because I didn't have my passport. Back we went to the hotel, not before my mother pointed out that I had left the cash there. The shop owner, who had told me I was doing really well in Hindi and banned me from speaking English, was now rivalled only by Handsome Officer from the night before as my Favourite Person in the World, so I decided there was nothing to worry about, and there wasn't. I'm still using the cheapest smartphone he had, but as you can imagine, the camera is not the best ever. It's very slow, which sometimes results in things that I think look quite artsy, like this photo of Bandra station at rush hour:

All in all, if not for the fact that I never back anything up and therefore lost several decent poems in my Samsung Notes, losing my phone would have had no downsides whatsoever. You should try it sometime!

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Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought or share your Travel Snaps challenge piece in the comments below. :)

If you want to know why I have no faith in the British police, I invite you to read this tale of woe: On Fearlessness and Terror