That evening/ morning was miserable. I spent hours being sent from one counter, desk, and office to another to try to change my flight, contact the embassy, etc., but nothing went right: the internet was down, and everyone sent me to someone else to talk to, just to have that person send me back. One man finally explained that what I had to do was go to the Indian High Consulate in Colombo and get a special stamp in my paasport that would allow me to get back into the country. I went through security so many times that night (some of the offices were outside the secure area, some were inside) that they got to know me and would just wave me through. I started to think about Tom Hanks in The Terminal.
Later that morning I finally got back to Columbo and the airline office where I was able to bump my flight back about five days. The Indian High Consulate wasn't open for another hour, so I gave up and caught a train back to Kandy. There, I spent some time making lost and found posters with pictures and a description of my hat. I included a Sri Lankan translation explaining the reward, as well as the phone number of my friend Roshini in Columbo. I then had 100 copies made. Why so many? I could have lost the bloody thing anywhere between Ella, Kandy, and the top of Adam's Peak. Still, I thought I'd at least try. I pasted a few up in Kandy, then got on the train to Delhousie/ Adam's Peak. And I got off the train at the next stop, running out with a pre-glued piece of paper to slap up in a visible spot, before running back and jumping on the train. I did this, oh, about two dozen times, maybe, frantically running past people, pasting a poster and running back. (Did I mention I had only about 8 hours sleep for the three nights previous? That might explain a few things.) I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was crazy, (I did.) but they were also very helpful. People on the train started asking for posters and one guy even offered to put it up on a local TV channel.
The next day I started climbing the mountain, again, leaving posters at tea stands along the way. I made it about half way, when a hotel said, yes, they had a cap. (They don't really use the word "hat" - everything is a "cap".) That brief hope was quickly extinguished when they brought out an ugly, cheap, red thing. And then, looking at the poster, they noticed that I had left a number out of the Roshini's phone number. All those posters I had put up? Maybe 50? Yep, they were all wrong. (My email address was right, but few people actually use email there.)
F*ck.
So, resigned and partially defeated, I headed back down. I spent the evening down in town, fixing the remaining posters. After about three hours sleep, I got up, and started climbing back up the damn mountain - again. After fixing all the posters I had left before, I came back down, and was asleep by 2:00AM.
The next day while waiting for the train to Ella, I bought a hat. It was kind of like the red one I was shown the previous day - beige, and with a brim that was stiff from the plastic insert. It was pretty crappy. In Ella I checked back into the hotel I stayed at before, but I weren't able to find it. The thing that amazed me, though, was how kind everyone was. Instead of looking at me as the semi-obsessed, crazy gringo that I was, they took the cause on almost as if it were there own. The hotel called others. A rickshaw driver took me to a nearby rural village, explaining that "It's not a hat a Sri Lankan person would keep or wear - maybe a Tamil." and asked the farmers there if they had seen it. Back in town someone told me to ask Telakasheeny (Tela, for short) - a local homeless guy who wore a similar hat. (Hmmmmm....) When I found Tela, and asked him to keep an eye out for it, he looked at me with the utmost sincerity, and said "I will do my very best, sir." as though I had just asked him to storm a machine gun nest.
The best though, was that night before I went to bed. A young guy in his late teens who worked at the hotel came to me and in broken english tried to explain he had looked all over the hotel without any luck. I thanked him for trying, and he said, as the tears started to well up in his eyes: "I'm sorry... it's just... you come all the way from America... and now... this happen... your grandma's cap... I just... in here (pointing to his heart) I feel so..." shaking and dropping his head, wiping away the tears. Great - now, I'm getting all weepy- eyed. "Oh, hey...no... it's OK." I tell him. He looks up at me and points to my chest: "Are you sure you OK... in here?" (Oh god, the kids killing me here.) "Yeah, yes, of course. It's OK." I reply, and give him a smile. He smiles back and I give him as manly a one-armed man hug as I can before saying goodnight.
The next morning I saw Tela. Still no hat, but I gave him my old sleeping bag in grattitude, and because I really didn't have much use or room for it anymore. The rest of the day was spent traveling back to Kandy, repeating the running around like a headless chicken routine to fix phone numbers on the posters along the way. I met a train conductor from before who was very Buddhist about the whole thing, explaining that loss is a natural part of life. He later explained that he had lost his wife and daughter in the tsunami that ravaged the coast in 2004. He was on a train at the time, so wasn't at home when it happened. Talk about putting things into perspective.
In Kandy that night I bought another hat, better than the previous one, though still pretty cheap and crappy. The next day I was able to get my passport stamped by the Indian High Consulate saying that I was going to be allowed back to India becasue of "Humanitarian Consideration". And that same night, after having put a "lost" ad in two of the Sri Lankan newspapers, one in English and the other Singalese, I realized that I had lost the hat I had just bought. The situation was going from sad to pathetic. Somehow, over nearly 10 years, and maybe tens of thousands of miles, I had managed keep a hold of one hat. Now, I was unable to keep from loosing one after 24 hrs.
Maybe the Indian High Commision was trying to tell me something.
Later that morning I finally got back to Columbo and the airline office where I was able to bump my flight back about five days. The Indian High Consulate wasn't open for another hour, so I gave up and caught a train back to Kandy. There, I spent some time making lost and found posters with pictures and a description of my hat. I included a Sri Lankan translation explaining the reward, as well as the phone number of my friend Roshini in Columbo. I then had 100 copies made. Why so many? I could have lost the bloody thing anywhere between Ella, Kandy, and the top of Adam's Peak. Still, I thought I'd at least try. I pasted a few up in Kandy, then got on the train to Delhousie/ Adam's Peak. And I got off the train at the next stop, running out with a pre-glued piece of paper to slap up in a visible spot, before running back and jumping on the train. I did this, oh, about two dozen times, maybe, frantically running past people, pasting a poster and running back. (Did I mention I had only about 8 hours sleep for the three nights previous? That might explain a few things.) I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was crazy, (I did.) but they were also very helpful. People on the train started asking for posters and one guy even offered to put it up on a local TV channel.
The next day I started climbing the mountain, again, leaving posters at tea stands along the way. I made it about half way, when a hotel said, yes, they had a cap. (They don't really use the word "hat" - everything is a "cap".) That brief hope was quickly extinguished when they brought out an ugly, cheap, red thing. And then, looking at the poster, they noticed that I had left a number out of the Roshini's phone number. All those posters I had put up? Maybe 50? Yep, they were all wrong. (My email address was right, but few people actually use email there.)
F*ck.
So, resigned and partially defeated, I headed back down. I spent the evening down in town, fixing the remaining posters. After about three hours sleep, I got up, and started climbing back up the damn mountain - again. After fixing all the posters I had left before, I came back down, and was asleep by 2:00AM.
The next day while waiting for the train to Ella, I bought a hat. It was kind of like the red one I was shown the previous day - beige, and with a brim that was stiff from the plastic insert. It was pretty crappy. In Ella I checked back into the hotel I stayed at before, but I weren't able to find it. The thing that amazed me, though, was how kind everyone was. Instead of looking at me as the semi-obsessed, crazy gringo that I was, they took the cause on almost as if it were there own. The hotel called others. A rickshaw driver took me to a nearby rural village, explaining that "It's not a hat a Sri Lankan person would keep or wear - maybe a Tamil." and asked the farmers there if they had seen it. Back in town someone told me to ask Telakasheeny (Tela, for short) - a local homeless guy who wore a similar hat. (Hmmmmm....) When I found Tela, and asked him to keep an eye out for it, he looked at me with the utmost sincerity, and said "I will do my very best, sir." as though I had just asked him to storm a machine gun nest.
The best though, was that night before I went to bed. A young guy in his late teens who worked at the hotel came to me and in broken english tried to explain he had looked all over the hotel without any luck. I thanked him for trying, and he said, as the tears started to well up in his eyes: "I'm sorry... it's just... you come all the way from America... and now... this happen... your grandma's cap... I just... in here (pointing to his heart) I feel so..." shaking and dropping his head, wiping away the tears. Great - now, I'm getting all weepy- eyed. "Oh, hey...no... it's OK." I tell him. He looks up at me and points to my chest: "Are you sure you OK... in here?" (Oh god, the kids killing me here.) "Yeah, yes, of course. It's OK." I reply, and give him a smile. He smiles back and I give him as manly a one-armed man hug as I can before saying goodnight.
The next morning I saw Tela. Still no hat, but I gave him my old sleeping bag in grattitude, and because I really didn't have much use or room for it anymore. The rest of the day was spent traveling back to Kandy, repeating the running around like a headless chicken routine to fix phone numbers on the posters along the way. I met a train conductor from before who was very Buddhist about the whole thing, explaining that loss is a natural part of life. He later explained that he had lost his wife and daughter in the tsunami that ravaged the coast in 2004. He was on a train at the time, so wasn't at home when it happened. Talk about putting things into perspective.
In Kandy that night I bought another hat, better than the previous one, though still pretty cheap and crappy. The next day I was able to get my passport stamped by the Indian High Consulate saying that I was going to be allowed back to India becasue of "Humanitarian Consideration". And that same night, after having put a "lost" ad in two of the Sri Lankan newspapers, one in English and the other Singalese, I realized that I had lost the hat I had just bought. The situation was going from sad to pathetic. Somehow, over nearly 10 years, and maybe tens of thousands of miles, I had managed keep a hold of one hat. Now, I was unable to keep from loosing one after 24 hrs.
Maybe the Indian High Commision was trying to tell me something.
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