Yesterday, when I went to a shop to get some stuff, I got the rude shock that my wallet was missing from my handbag. I searched at home and tried remembering when I had seen it last and realized that it was the day before. Finally, I reached the dreaded conclusion that my wallet must have got stolen. My nice new, Blue & Blues, Italian leather wallet gone! In fact I rued the loss of the wallet more than the money in it. I’m guessing that the wallet itself cost more than the cash I was carrying. It was a nice red colour, a sharp contrast from the usual brown and black wallets. My impulse purchase at the newly opened Oberoi Mall.L

As it is, I was having a series of bad days. Now this. I just sat and held my head in my hands. A quick inventory made of the Credit cards and Debit cards in the wallet. Why did I have to keep them all there? When I use the CC only on weekends? Then search for CC bills for the customer care number and card number. Then for around 2 hours I was calling up hazaar customer care people asking them to block my cards. Repeating my birth date and address over and over. It was tiresome indeed. Most of the customer services were pretty prompt. Some were a bit slow. I also cancelled some cards in this exercise. Cards I rarely use. It was good to know that there has not been any misuse of the card in the 1 day it took me to realize that the cards were gone. I should count my blessings that the thief did not go on  a shopping spree with my cards.

Now, I don’t have much money on me and it will take then 4-5 days to replace my ATM card. So, I have no option but to borrow money for my day to day expenses. Weekend is just around the corner. Then I realized that I have also lost all my Store loyalty cards, my club membership cards. Humphh..

But the good thing is that all this can be replaced. Still, I did feel a deep sense of loss. It took me around 3 hours of chatting with my newfound online buddies to get over my loss. My new, red wallet, cash, charges for getting new cards issued..just counting my losses because of a stolen wallet.

This led me to think about all the losses I have incurred in the recent past..

The Sensex crash has made my investment portfolio shed quite some money.My cell phone display – Some months back my cell phone slipped out of my hand and fell on the curb and the display died. The display cost some 3K and I had to grudgingly shell it out to save a 20K cell phone.

I almost lost the above mentioned cell phone, when I forgot it at Pop Tate's. But I can say that the waiters and management is quite honest.  I was able to get the phone back.

So, let me make a list of all the big losses I have suffered to date (monetary and otherwise)

Wallet + cards –       Can be replaced

Investments in stock market -  I might be able to recover if I wait for 5 years or so

Loss of a parent        Irreplaceable

Loss of a friend         I may find others, but the space  would    remain

Loss of a job            very frustrating, but things turned around eventually

Marriage                  I’m still counting....loss of peace of mind, losing hair, tension

I shall end with a quote I saw at the end of the movie “Amores Perros” which went something like this –

“We are also all that we lost …”