Abu Dhabi: The story of a lost and found bag has led to an unlikely friendship across the divide between India and Pakistan. An Indian and his family are eagerly waiting for an opportunity to meet a Pakistan national whom they have never met. The hostility between the countries did not prevent Dilshad Hussain in Pakistan from carrying out an intensive search to find the owner of a misplaced bag that incidentally was tagged with an Indian national flag.
“My family and I are eagerly waiting to meet him [Hussain]. If I can’t go to Pakistan, I think Dubai will be an ideal place for us to meet each other one day. Without his sincere efforts my life would have been totally jeopardised,” Ajay Joyson told Gulf News on phone on Thursday from London, where he arrived with his family last week for a new job.
The lost bag contained Joyson and his wife’s important original official documents, including educational certificates, marriage certificate, and their daughter’s birth certificate, apart from other valuables.
After quitting his job in Saudi Arabia, he was flying to Kochi in India on May 19 for a ten-day break before joining a new job in London. The 29-year old health-care professional said a police clearance certificate issued by the Saudi Arabian authorities was also among the valuable certificates.
“It was almost impossible to get the duplicate certificates in a short span of time. My travel to London with my family, my new job … and everything was at risk,” Joyson said.
His efforts during the next eight days through the airlines and all authorities concerned met with no success.
“Finally, we left everything to God as there was nothing more we could do,” he said.
Meanwhile, during a routine workday at Lahore airport, Hussain, a baggage supervisor, chanced upon a bag with an empty name tag, which left him with no means to identify the owner of the bag although the flag tagged with the bag hinted at its Indian origin.
“Finding the important certificates inside the bag, I felt that somebody’s life is in my hands and I have to do something beyond my routine work,” Hussain told Gulf News on phone from Lahore on Thursday.
The lost bag had a strange journey to Lahore from Kochi in India. The bag was left behind on the flight and was returned to Jeddah airport and ended up in the lost baggage section. Incidentally, when the same flight took off for Lahore and came back to Jeddah, there was a complaint from a passenger that he had left behind his baggage inside the flight.
The “unnamed baggage” suited the description in the complaint and it was sent to Lahore but the passenger said it was not his bag.
If Hussain had sent the unnamed bag back to Jeddah, it would have ended up again among scores of lost bags there.
“When I could not reach the Saudi phone numbers found in the bag, finally I searched for Ajay Joyson on Facebook and found his post on the missing bag and called up his uncle’s number,” Hussain said.
Joyson’s uncle, Lawrence Vadukut, said it was unbelievable that Hussain made the effort to send the bag safely to India.
“Now he is our friend forever. We will never forget his help,” he said on phone from Kerala in India.
Joyson was delighted to receive the bag just one day before he was to fly to London. “It was heartening to see that Hussain had locked the bag and wrapped it up to ensure its safety. The small Indian national flag I had tagged with the bag was also intact. We are happy to see that there are such wonderful people like Hussain across the border,” Joyson said.
