Karma and a Rebel

The weekend trip to San Diego was awesome and i was on my way back to Sunnyvale.
It was a Monday morning. The flight landed in San Francisco at 8:15, 45 minutes ahead of its scheduled landing. Me and my cousin(if i may call him so !) Karthik took the AirTram to the Bart Station at the Airport, then took a Bart train from there until San Bruno, and another Bart to Millbrae where we had to catch a Caltrain to Sunnyvale.

Caltrain finally arrived at Millbrae at around 10 AM (which was about 5 minutes late). We boarded it and began the last leg of our travel back home. We sat on the upper level of the train. I was enjoying the journey because this was the first time i was travelling in Caltrain. Finally we arrived at our destination Sunnyvale at 10:50 AM. My luggage included a backpack, my camera bag which holds one of my most valuable possession, my Canon EOS Rebel XS Digital SLR and another kit bag. In the midst of the excitement of reaching back home i completely forgot to pick my Camera bag which i had kept near my leg in the train(Damn!....How could i even do such a horrible thing!)...I realised that as soon as I got out of the train and was kind of shocked. I ran back to the station to inform any official of my loss. Incidentally there are only 2 "lost and found" desks, one at the San Francisco station and another one at the San Jose station. My brother in law was at the station by then and we lodged a complaint over the phone. We decided to drive all the way until the last stop(at San Jose) and try to request the officials over there to ask someone to have the train checked for my camera. But when we arrived there at around 11:30 AM, we were told that no such thing could be done and the only thing i could do was to place a complaint and wait if someone finds it and RETURNS it !...Thats all i could do for now...Now, from my side, i decided to take a whole day pass, head to San Francisco, and try to search through all the trains possible. So, i took the 12:24 PM Caltrain from Sunnyvale to San Francisco and started searching all the bogies at the exact location i was sitting with weird stares from my fellow travellers :P. But with no avail. I talked to the ticket collectors too about my problem. They said that the train i took earlier would have gone to the service yard. So, i thought that if i went to San Francisco and requested the staff over there, they would send someone to look for my camera on the trains in the service yard. The ticket collector also said that the chances of someone returning a DSLR camera are very very remote. I had already put all my hopes of finding my camera in the trash. But then, i had to do something from my part too because my camera is a very integral part of my life !

I reached the San Francisco station at around 1:30 PM. The replies were the same. They just took another written complaint and told me that they could never tell where a particular train would be at any particular moment in time. It could either be because of the fact that there are about 85 Caltrains running through SFO or because of security concerns. I tried asking them in every possible manner about the current location of the train i took, but they would not disclose. I then dejectedly decided to head back to Sunnyvale hoping that some good person finds my camera and returns it. I took the 2:07 PM train to Sunnyvale. I was about midway when my phone rang because of a call from a 408 number. I somehow felt there would be some good news and indeed it was. A lady from the San Jose station told me that they indeed found my camera and asked me to collect it before 8 PM. I felt like jumping in joy. It was one of my happiest moments for sure :)

I finally went over to the San Jose station and collected my camera. Everything was in place. That was one horrible day which ended on a happy note. No wonder why elders say alls well that ends well.

I am yet to come to terms with my good luck. Would you believe that someone actually returned my DSLR Camera found on a public train. I believe that its all karma in the end. This world isnt as bad as we think it is. You smile at the world and the world will smile back at you. Lets make this world a better place to live in.
After all, its for you and inturn the world :)