I lost my wallet on the jolly evening of last Tuesday. It was presumably slipped out from my right hip pocket or doubtfully picked by someone. However, I only realized that it was missing as I dropped a friend of mine at her residence in Old Dhaka. She took pity on me and lent me more than the needed rickshaw fare.
It wasn't a time to feel shy or reticent, but to accept the cash going beyond all moral scruples. However, as I accepted her kind support, an element of reasoning besieged me. Wasn't it better to borrow money from her than to my half-sleepy servant boy at home? After all, I was his master.
Overwhelmed by worries, the trip way back home was irritating. A queer mixture of anger, failure and ego had plagued me. Almost empty streets insistently reminded me of my empty pockets. The soothing wintry night reminded of those living in Siberia. I often consider a man without a wallet to be a man without balls. The conventional term of the wallet as a moneybag seemed more of a pride and prestige than what it contained.
However, I had a sleepless night as the wall clock kept ticking through midnight. Tick-tock, tick-tock, a rhythmic hum but felt like telling me 'you are a big mock'. I got out of my blanket and removed the batteries and went to bed again. Unable to sleep, I kept reflecting back on the events of the day but the wallet would just not leave my thoughts.
When was the last time I lost a wallet? More than a decade ago, but I lost 4 mobile phones in the last 12 years. The repercussions were unbearable.
For most people in my office, their wallets are like onions. Whenever they take them out and open, it seems like they are cutting onions, only the tears don�t come out. For this happy-go-lucky bachelor it is the exact opposite. In case the cash is missing, the cards are there as 'replacement lovers'.
First, I felt like completely isolated from the rest of the society. Second, losing a mobile phone for a journalist means it is not your misfortune but you have committed a somewhat 'cardinal sin' by losing all your contacts. You will now have to renew your life by saving each and every unknown number. Furthermore, all your photos and recordings have withered away. As I had been a victim of phone theft many times over, the consolation was that the hardship would have been even worse, had I lost it for the fifth time.
The fear eventually got into my head. I right away picked up the pen in the wee hours to write down all 483 contact numbers. It took about more than an hour, but it took less than 10 minutes the next morning for the two superfast efficient customer care officers of two private banks to block my debit and credit cards. As luck would have it, it is my elder brother who bailed me out by lending enough cash to run the month.
My new cards have been scheduled to be delivered within 5 working days - meaning I will get them back anytime by this working week. Our IT specialist issued a new press card in less than a working day. Only the national ID card will take about a fortnight and the few thousands of lost cash, I assume to have been already spent by the new owner of my wallet.
I have learnt my lesson by incurring a loss, though a big one. The loss, however, taught me to prioritise over which commodity matters the most in our daily life - a wallet or a mobile phone? Understandably, both are important, but if you compare the losses between the two, both in terms of monetary and material losses, for this writer it is the mobile phone which is more valuable.
Unless you are using a designer brand wallet - Cartier, Gucci or whatever - sufferings triggered by losing a wallet has come down considerably. In case if you are failing to get across the point, count the number of contact and visiting cards you have in your wallet to all the contact numbers in your mobile phone.
Following my recent loss I began taking a screen shot of all visiting cards and save them in my phone. And in case you fall short of cash, bKash and other mobile financial services is there to free you.
Perhaps the day is not too far in the digital age to make all your payments electronically including commuting fares. Perhaps next time I lose my wallet, a screen shot of my debit and credit cards will help customer care officers to block my account in less than 2 minutes. Perhaps we will all own a personal e-wallet, but not any time soon. For that matter a man's wallet also has a sensitive value.
Imagine you are paying a bill in front of your wife or girl friend by pulling out hard cash from your pocket, what's her perception about you? The answer is simple and straight: You are a cunning, cleaver and cagey man. Of course, they will not voice it since the bill has been cleared.
Now that I have talked on men and their wallets, losing a vanity purse is even more frightening with grave consequences for our ladies. We don't carry our mobile phones in our wallets and there is no space either, but most ladies do.
Ranging from a tiny mirror, tissue paper, lipstick, eye liner, to face powder, perfume, cash, cards to mobile phone and handkerchief, whatever you name all are inside. Be as it may, my mother values her purse more than her phone or what's in it, since all of them are designer brands ranging in quality and price .
However, I must admit my admiration for one of our unknown ladies belonging to the 'elite' class to have turned extra-ordinarily cautious and more intelligent safeguarding her 'prized possession', otherwise her luxury purse. Coming out of the Gulshan Club, this beautiful elegant lady locked her Prada bag on her left elbow - her Apple Phone (Assumedly the latest version) on her right palm - carefully distancing her male partner, boy friend or husband or whatever the man was by a good 5 feet.
No wonder why 'the devil wears Prada'. More than her looks, I admired her 'preferential treatment of possessions'. However, following my elder brother's prudent advice, I decided to place my phone and wallet in the two front pockets but I am yet to get one. The new wallet, expensive or cheap, will also give me a run for my money.
But then again, I am a man with problems more to solutions. On the flipside of criticising ladies and their passion for handbags, I cannot tuck in my cigarettes and lighter in any of my hip pockets, so I will have to carry them by hand. Oh by the way, I rarely wear shirts and summer is just around the corner. Most importantly, my shirt pocket is only reserved for the Parker fountain pen I got as a gift from a colleague - I also lost more than a dozen of them in the past decade.
Now days I treat the pen like a Prada luxury commodity. Jokes apart, life cannot move on without a wallet full of cash, cards and definitely not a mobile phone for most people today. What I am missing right now is my wallet. It used to be thick for the first 20 days of the month and noticeably thin during the last ten days.
In the end, there is none.
What is more important to you?
The writer is assistant editor,
The Daily Observer
