My Meandering Mobile

As I sit here at my desk typing, I’m feeling mildly anxious. Just a slight bit,really. Minutes ago, I returned from a long marvelously sweaty yoga class, stretching my body beyond its usual limits. Ending in delicious “shavasana“, laying on my back arms and legs outstretched and nearly floating. But now as I sit typing, I am thinking about my missing mobile phone. I imagine it bouncing along in a rickshaw, in the brown khaki shirt pocket of the driver. Or perhaps tucked somewhere behind his back — one foot folded under him as he hurtles along the road.  

Losing your cellphone can take the shavasana right out of you. All that life information, the numbers, the notes, the photos. Sure, maybe you are diligent and backup your phone. But when was the last time you did it? Or like me, do you avoid having it all ‘on the cloud’ and cling to some vague notion of privacy, now feeling more like stupidity?

This morning I rushed from the flat to get to my class, hopped into a rickshaw and bounced along. My mind focused on the time, then how empty the road seemed. Few cars but the usual swarm of rickshaws rushing up to each other and then swerving around like reckless dance partners.

As I reach my destination, I unzip my small pouch and fish around among the crumpled receipts, the pens and the thoroughly wrinkled scrap of paper I keep just in case I have to actually write something down. I find the twenty rupees I had deliberately tucked in that morning. Time to clean out that pouch, I tell myself. It’s only a quick ride, and as I hop out and turn to pay the driver, I look into his face and smile. It’s perhaps one second but one of those moments where time stretches and I register his eyes, youthful and wide, his face smooth and open. No smile, but no apparent judgment. 

I reach the classroom and place my pouch on the floor, my tiny bottle of water, my long-sleeved shirt. I remove the band from my yoga mat and remember to mute my phone. My phone. My phone. But I have no phone. Not on the floor, not in my pouch. Did I drop it in the rickshaw? Wouldn’t I have heard it hitting the metal floor? Was it not in my hand? Could it have slid from my lap across the smooth bench seat, flying out one of the open cab sidesand plunking into the road, its clattering sound swallowed by the rickshaw horns and engines? I see the face of the driver which briefly imprinted on my brain. Now, I am not superstitious. Not really. But why, of all the many rickshaw rides I have taken, did I register this driver’s face? Was it a warning I ignored? 

I tell myself I likely left my phone on the kitchen table. ‘You’ve no need for that companion here,’ I think. I push the thought of my phone out of my head and dive into my class — mind and body.

When I return home, my phone is not on the kitchen table, not resting next to my bed. I call it from my husband’s phone. There is silence in the house. I listen through several rings. Did whoever has taken my phone, shut it off? The first step a good phone thief would take. I should know. I’ve been through this before. 

Experience has been my teacher, leaving me more detached and somewhat philosophical. This is not the first time I’ve lost a phone, nor the second. This is the third time.

Now hold your clucking tongues and shaking heads in judgement, as I relate one adventure my mobile had. The one from which I really learned: 

Before moving to Mumbai, I lived in Shanghai, China for several years. One winter, my older son and I took a brief trip to Nanjing, China’s capital during the Ming dynasty. It is also the site of one of modern history’s horrific events. There in that ancient city, my mobile vanished. 

It is a bitterly cold day. The kind that stiffens your fingers even through wool gloves. My son Noah and I hurriedly walk along the city’s 14th century walls and hop into a taxi. I stuff my mobile phone deep into my coat pocket, and burrow my hands into sleeves. Huddling under my woolen layers, I shiver in the back seat as we race to get to the famed Temple of Confucius, our last stop before the sun sets. 

The taxi stops near an intersection, and I climb out of the back, glancing at the empty seat for anything left behind. As my son pays the driver, I jump up and down outside the taxi, clapping my gloved hands together to generate warmth. We rush off, jogging to stay warm and beat the setting sun.

“Stop!” I shout as we near the temple grounds. “Let me just get a quick photo of you here by the Confucius statue, before the sun sets.” I reach into my pocket for my phone and feel nothing but a wadded piece of tissue. Not there? Not in my other pocket either. I pull off my backpack, prop it against a nearby bench, and begin fishing through the contents. A deep trawl produces no phone. I begin to panic. 

“I know I had my phone. I just had it.” “Ok, ok, you’ll find it,” Noah assures me. I dump the contents of my bag, then spread them all out. I turn my bag upside down and shake it. Now my heart really sinks. “Where did you last see it?” he asks. “That’s the problem. I’m certain I put it in my pocket.” He calls my phone. No nearby ring. “Let me retrace my steps, maybe I dropped it.” And we pace back and forth outside the temple. What would Confucius have thought of my dilemma? Perhaps he would have turned to me and sagely said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Perhaps he would have dismissed me with, “Can’t you be more careful?” 

But farewell Confucius, I need to find my mobile. “Let’s go back to the intersection where I could have dropped it getting out of the taxi.” Slowly with our heads down, we scan the ground as we walk. Pushing past pedestrians, ignoring souvenir peddlers, we struggle to ignore the delicious smells drifting from snack shops.

Noah calls my phone as we hunt. No answer. The light is nearly erased from the sky as we reach the intersection to comb the sidewalk and road edge. “So many taxis drop tourists here, someone could easily have swiped it,” I say hopelessly. We’ve both been studying Chinese and now we tax that knowledge to ask waiting drivers if there’s radio chatter about a found mobile. Silly.

I call my phone one more time. Now I hear the phone company message in Mandarin. As if a stranger’s hand reaches out from the unknown, I feel a slap: someone somewhere has shut off my phone.

Despair, some panic. You probably all know the feeling.

My children and I talk often about the relationships we have with our phones — that constantly demanding friend, that alien extension of our bodies. We may feel off balance without it. A device that’s killed eye contact. That companion who sucks all the attention away from the flesh and blood kind. 

Never mind that now, where’s my phone? 

I suddenly remember: This is China. Aren’t cameras everywhere? Noah and I look up at nearby streetlamps, hunting for signs of Big Brother. We stop a policeman to ask if a nearby station might lead us to any video and a lead. ‘Go back to your hotel,’ we are advised. ‘There will be a police station near there, and you can report the phone missing.’

We ride glumly back to our hotel, staring out at passing cars and shops now lit against the darkness. Where out there is my phone now?

Back at our hotel, we find a helpful concierge who speaks excellent English. Kevin Chen is sympathetic, but tells us the odds are slim. The usual routine of the local phone thief would be to shut the phone off, remove the battery, sell the phone quickly. Still, he suggests, we can head to the local police station to file a report.

I can’t say that the Chinese police have a warm and friendly reputation, but a pleasant young policeman behind a front desk, quickly calls over a supervisor to assist. The older man speaks no English, but understands our basic Mandarin tale. He seems encouraging and, nodding confidently, begins to write rapidly on a scrap of paper. I sense progress, but as the paper turns to a confusing scrawl, I get the disheartening jist: Go back to where you lost the phone. The camera images will be at that station. “But can’t you simply call them? Can’t youhelp?” No, no, we must go in person. He smiles broadly and hands us his scrap of paper.

Back on the dark street, I turn to my son, “Forget it, let’s just forget it.” We are tired and hungry and don’t have an appetite for another ‘run around’ with the Chinese police. We walk quickly back to the hotel and inform the helpful concierge. Once in our room, I call Shanghai and relate the saga to my younger son. “Did you have on “Find my phone?” Harry asks? I confess I’d disabled it because my battery was too weak. “Let me send a message in Chinese to your phone: If found, and my number.” Noah and I then head off to find dinner.

The next day is our most important stop: The Nanjing Massacre Memorial. It’s a moving, and thought-provoking memorial. Hours pass quickly pondering photographs, personal artifacts and testimonials. Pondering man’s inhumanity to man. The specter of lost phone vanishes from my brain.

But just as we enter the last section, Noah’s phone receives a message from my younger son: “Someone has found Mom’s phone! I sent them your number. Here’s the number the message came from.”

Now the urgency of my lost phone leaps back into my brain. But I’m torn, “I’d just made peace with losing my phone. I had let it go.” I move to a corner to call the number. A shrill voice answers. Her Chinese is nearly impossible to understand. “Let’s go back to the hotel and get the help of the concierge,” my son says. “Let’s walk through this last part,” I urge him feeling guilt at my shifting priorities. “We should go now, that person may change her mind and sell the phone,” he warns. We rush on, weaving through a memorial garden path and out to the street to flag a taxi.

Our driver is lively and chatty and we are happy to understand his jokes. Perhaps he can help. I explain the situation, then call my phone. The shrill voice answers and then a first question, “Are you a foreigner?” I hand off the phone to the driver and he talks quickly in local dialect. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ I think. But suddenly he shouts,“Wei, Wei?” (Hello, Hello?). He hands Noah his phone. She’s hung up on the driver.

Now the game has changed. She’s asked if I’m a foreigner and then hangs up on the local. She clearly wants something and wants to extract it directly from me. But she’s made a possible error. We have her number.

Back at the hotel, we rush to the concierge, impatiently hovering as he pores over a local map with a guest. Mr. Chen listens patiently to my story, and calls the woman for me. Then he calmly delivers her demand. “She wants 2,000 yuan. Or you don’t get the phone back.” 

That’s more than $300. Far more than the value of my old phone and nearly the price of a similar new one. My despair is shoved aside by anger. “She’s holding my phone hostage,” I murmur to Noah. I explain to Mr. Chen, “In the US we would definitely pay a reward in this case, but this kind of demand for money is wrong.” “I understand,” he nods and turns back to the phone. She’s hung up.

“Wait, can’t the police track her phone? Can’t they track everyone’s phone here? Don’t they know exactly where she is?” “Yes, true,” he admits.“Mr. Chen, can you please call the police for me?”

My son and I eavesdrop. The conversation has barely begun when I hear him pause and then answer, “She’s an American.”

They want to know my nationality. Probably even before they consider helping? My son and I lock eyes in understanding as we listen.

Mr. Chen finishes his call and turns to me, “The police say please wait here, they will come to meet with you.” We park in the lobby, watching guests come and go, until we get sleepy and decide to wait in our room. 

Just as we reach our door, Noah’s phone rings. It is the woman holding my phone, “Why did you call the police?” she screams in Mandarin. “Wait, wait,” my son says and hands me the phone. Her Chinese is far too difficult to understand, and there is a noisy child in the background. The woman yells to someone and I hear what sounds like a smack and the child cries. The woman hangs up.

We troop back to Mr. Chen for more help, but she no longer answers the phone. The lovely concierge tells us his shift is soon ending. “Can you please call the police one more time to see what is happening?” I plead.

Eager for an update, we huddle at the desk. “The police are talking to her,” he explains quietly. “Talking to her?” I ask with raised eyebrows. “You mean threatening her?” Mr. Chen tilts his head and with a very faint smile says, “You might say that.” We must wait to see what plays out.

“Let me try her one more time,” he suddenly offers. He calls again and this time someone answers. Mr. Chen then announces, “Your phone is nearby. A young woman has your phone.” I squint at the lovely concierge in disbelief, “My phone is nearby? How is that possible? I think it was dropped at least a 20-minute drive away.” 

“Come,” he says pleasantly, “I will walk with you there as I am leaving.” 

Back out into the cold, we scurry down two blocks and across the street. Along the way, Noah and I whisper in debate: Don’t I still give some money? What kind of reward do we offer? Aren’t I rewarding bad behavior? Her reward is not getting arrested! But doesn’t some reward encourage honesty? A fast decision must be made and, for better or worse, I come up with a small sum. 

We stop in front of a scruffy looking karaoke bar with blaring neon sign. A pretty pale young woman with long sleek black hair and dark red lipstick comes out of the bar. A fur coat slung over her shoulders against the cold barely covers a low-cut sequined dress with plenty of bosom exposed. “Here!” she says sullenly in Chinese, thrusting out her arm. I stare into her palm for a few seconds. There, like a relative back from a long journey, is my phone. Familiar battered orange case in a slender unfamiliar hand. I proffer the crumpled yuan. “No, no.” she says, shaking her head vigorously and backing up. “It is our custom,” I explain half feeling like I’m making something up. “But I have a question,” I venture, taking my phone and placing the yuan in her hand. “Where did you find my phone?”

“My mother-in-law found it,” she blurts out.“This was all her idea!” The young woman continues, “She was taking my daughter from school. My daughter found your phone on the street. This was my mother-in-law’s idea!” she repeats, backing up toward the bar.

Drained of my earlier anger, tension, surprise, I’m now saddened by the bleak window into a stranger’s life opened by my phone. My phone has brought near disaster to this young woman’s already troubled life. I want to let her forget my phone, to go back to her work, whatever that is. I want to end this all-consuming hunt and spend ‘quality’ time with my son.

As she reenters the bar, a burst of thumping music spills into the street. I quickly look down at my phone checking again that it’s really mine. 

“It must have fallen from my pocket when I jumped up and down in the street. How stupid. How unbelievable.” I say as we walk away. “How lucky,” Noah counters.“Yes, I am lucky,” I say linking my arm in his. “But from now on…,” I continue, beginning a pledge, “Ok, forget it for now. It’s our last night, let’s go eat,” he says.

Now, you may be wondering if I got my phone back in Mumbai: Today when I hear an unfamiliar male voice answer my phone, I can’t believe it but I can completely believe it. I did in fact drop it in the rickshaw, and I do indeed get it back.

How many times can a lost phone return? The superstitious will surmise. The rational will criticize. I will redouble vigilance. But there’s something more my meandering mobile has already taught me: keep a check on its place in your life.