It was the August of 2017. I was midway through my fourth Europe
solo trip. From Finland, I had taken the boat to Estonia and then gone down the
road route to Latvia and Lithuania. And now I was flying to Belarus. When I
reached Minsk airport, I headed straight to immigration. They looked at my
passport and asked me for my return ticket. If you are Indian and want to go to Belarus on a Schengen visa, you are
only allowed entry for five days, and you must have a return ticket when you
enter the country. I promptly took out my phone, and showed them the ticket.
The officer stared at my passport for a long time. I understood he hadn’t seen
many Indians coming to his country. After sometime, he shook his head and told
me that I needed to have a print-out copy of the ticket. I told him that I if
they needed a hard copy, they should direct me to a printer. He shook his head
and told me that it wasn’t possible. Repeated conversation didn’t seem to help,
neither did the coming of one more officer. Suddenly a guard was summoned and he
rudely ordered me to go sit on a chair. And he insisted I would have to fly
back to Lithuania on the next flight.
Dismayed, I tried to convince him that I had booked hotels
for the next four days. I hadn’t,
actually. I never book anything in advance. It’s the only way to live in the
moment. But I kept at it, telling him it was unreasonable for them to send me
back even though I had a ticket, but not a printout. He became even more
aggressive so I shut up.
Having nothing to do, and being asked to just sit
indefinitely, I took out my laptop and started playing chess against the
computer. This made the guard interested, and he asked me if we could play
against each other. I grinned, and we started our match. When I came close to
winning, he got up abruptly, said he had some “important work” and walked off.
India 1 , Belarus 0, pal!
After almost three hours, someone from the airline company
came, handed me a printout and immigration finally let me enter. The next stop
was the Baggage claim, and my rucksack was nowhere to be seen. I ran all over
the airport, spoke to everyone I could (hardly anyone spoke English), and they
all claimed that there was no other bags except for the ones all the other
travellers took away. My bag, they insisted, must be still at Vilnius airport
(Lithuania) from where I had flown to Minsk.
After the unsuccessful search, I left the airport and set
out for a hostel.I was tired. I was supposed to be out of the airport at 6 pm,
but it was already 1030 pm. I had been treated aggressively, I had been
detained without much reason, and now my bags were lost. The only thing
remaining with me was my small bag which had just my passport and money. All my
clothes and other stuff were in the lost rucksack.
When I reached the hostel that night, there was chaos. It
was a family home that was disguised as a hostel. Absolutely no one seemed to
speak English, and I barely managed to get a dorm bed. The owner, an old lady,
looked kind, and gave me a towel. Well, not bad, now I had my passport, my
money, and a towel for the next five days.
I woke up next morning, and called up Minsk airport Lost and
Found. They declared that my rucksack hadn’t arrived at all at their airport. I
called Vilnius airport, and they had no clue where my rucksack was.
Oh well, I thought to myself. I got onto my Facebook page,
and wrote a post. I did not want to crib or rant about my bag. I have been
travelling for five years now, and only amazing things have happened to me. I
have been helped all across the world, I have only received kindness for five
years, so the first time I had a misfortune happening to me, I didn’t want to
be ungrateful and crib about it. So I wrote a post about my detaining, my
rucksack getting lost, but how it was alright that it had happened, that nature
always needed to maintain a balance, and that if I had a hundred good things
happening to me across 35 countries in five years, it was alright if there was
an occasional mishap like now. And mostly I had just lost all my clothes and
some food and shoes.
I wrote the post, and went out to see the city. I was back after two hours, and was astounded to see the reaction my post garnered. People from everywhere were commenting, some were calling me brave, some were calling me positive, and most said they were praying for the bag to come back to me. Astonishingly, the post went so viral that a lot of Belarussians also saw the post. Locals from Minsk were saying that they felt terrible about my ordeal, and that they couldn’t believe a traveller had been treated so badly. Some offered to show me their city, some offered to take me out for dinner, some offered to keep calling up the airport and finding out the status of my rucksack.
I wrote back to everyone. I was overwhelmed by how strangers
from India, from Belarus, and from other countries could feel so empathetic. I
was surprised that something as trivial as me losing my rucksack could make so
many people pray and wish for me. Two of my friends, Shweta and Reshma took
down the airport numbers, my baggage tag, and set about calling up the airport
every few hours.
That is when I
realized one thing. I knew that my bag was going to come back to me. I just
knew it. When hundreds, thousands of people want something to happen in one
united move, when there are so many people praying for one thing so
unselfishly, when the world is by your side, the universe will always respond.
I told a friend then that I did not know which corner of the world my rucksack
was in, but I would get it back within these five days.
With Shweta and Reshma continuously in touch with the
airports, I decided not to get a sim card. I wanted to see Belarus and I did
not want a phone to distract me. A local, Dmitry, god bless him, kept calling
up the airport too, trying to get updates about my bag. I would get all the
messages when I would connect to the
hostel wifi.
A day later, the post had gone so viral that a local
newspaper got in touch with me. They wanted to interrogate the immigration
officers for being rude to me, a visitor to their country. I understood they
wanted to do this, more for the story and the attention the newspaper would
get, so I was not much interested in being a part of the story.
Day 3: The comments, the love, the prayers kept pouring in.
Conversely, it also affected me a bit. I wanted to live in the moment. Forget
about my bag. But people were so concerned, they would keep messaging me and
asking me if it was found. After messaging for thehundredth time that it wasn’t
found, I got a little irritated. To live in the moment, you must forget the
past, and not worry about the future. Just enjoy what you are doing then.
For the first two days, I wore the same tee and jeans. On
day 3, I took off my tshirt and wore only my jacket and jeans. I was convinced
my bag would come back, and I wasn’t going to buy anything.
Day 4: There had already been two false alarms. Twice the
airports said they found my bag, but the pics of the found bags were not mine.
Reshma, Shweta did not give up. Nor did Dmitry. Nor did the hundreds of people
still pouring in comments on Facebook and Whatsapp.
I was going to fly out to Poland the next afternoon. The
reinforcements team (people calling up the airport) had one more addition –
Lavanya. While I roamed about the streets of Minsk and silently admired the
extremely hot women all around, Lavanya, Resh, Shweta and Dmitry kept
communicating with the airports. I was not bothered about the bag any more, I
wanted to just enjoy my last night in Minsk.
Early next morning, Lavanya called excitedly. “Your bag is found”. Still wary, I asked her to tell the airport to
send a pic. Ten minutes later, she had whatsapped me a picture of my rucksack.
It was finally found!
I went to the airport, also because I was to fly to Poland,
collected my bags, did my check in and put up a post about my rucksack being
found.
Again, love poured in from all over. People celebrated as if
their own bag had been found.
Congratulatory messages kept pouring in, not just
from followers in India, but other countries too. It was overwhelming to know
how many people cared. In an adorable display, 8-9 friends of mine made my
rucksack their whatsapp DP.
p.s
1 Like I said, I knew that my bag was
going to come back to me. I just knew it. When hundreds, thousands of
people want something to happen in one united move, when there are so many
people praying for one thing so unselfishly, when the world is by your side,
the universe will always respond. Heh, in four
years of travelling, every single time, and I repeat every single time,
things have dramatically become alright when I am in a spot. My faith in this
theory is even more reinforced now.
p.s 2 The biggest hug to Shweta, Reshma and Lavanya
- my friends, who called up the airports for days for me because I did
not have a local number.
p.s 3 To everyone,
stray stories of travel mishaps should never deter you from travelling
anywhere. The very fact that so many local Belarusians messaged me and offered
all help shows how there are amazing people everywhere. So keep travelling,
folks, to make such stories.
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