Gaining control to lose it

In the last few days I noticed that I remained calm under circumstances that earlier hassled me no end. Like misplacing articles of every day use - glasses, pens, papers. The other day I went for a meeting with my colleague who operates from another suburb, some 40 minutes away by car. The meeting was coming to a close after about 2 hours. I found the side compartment of my pouch open and so felt inside. My leather wallet wasn't there.
All my life I never used a wallet. Here was a pure leather one gifted by a girl student of mine as her farewell from the Institute. She insisted that I use it. I had felt a fatherly affection for her. Now most men in the fifties are not believable when they speak of the paternal streak. Let me confess I felt absolutely nurturant and affectionate, a pure feeling of joy, which one is fortunate to experience though but rarely in this mortal existence. So to honour her feelings, I started using the wallet at the age of 54. It became useful when I started travelling to Mumbai regularly on work the whole of last year. Like the black Parker pen, the wallet became my constant companion to work.
So the discovery of its absence unsettled me as my mind went over the contents of the wallet. Lata didn't figure in my mind at first. There were two credit cards and an ATM card. All the ugly faces of tricksters flashed past my eyes. My God, they could use the cards to dress me down to my bones! I must report immediately. The faceless, modern facades of the most modern banks made a brief appearance on my mind screen and soon faded away. I then went over all my motions right from starting off my room down the stairs into the car. Perhaps it was in the car that was parked downstairs. Come to think of it, I had engaged a taxi, since my car had been taken by my wife. If I had left it in the car, and the driver took it, would he now admit? Certainly not! I countered, why not? Honesty hasn't disappeared from the face of the earth.
By this time, the closing presentation had started. I tried keeping my mind focused on it. I recalled my lesson from Mind Training. If there is a problem, don't get stuck into it, by playing it over and cursing every time. Just say, I have a problem and I am going to deal with it. The presenter was talking about a software package which could produce reports that helped solve a lot of problems, reportedly. I repeated the mind training dictum to myself. I will check it on the way out, in the car and then back in my office. If it is not there, I would report the loss to the banks concerned asking them to stop entertaining the usage of the cards, three of them in all.
Having done this, I listened more attentively to the portly old man who seemed too pleased with his product. He kept saying it will help the top management to exercise control over operations. I kept thinking that was the surest way to blast away the road to implementation. I told my colleague what I felt. To me the software had to be sold also to the people who fed the data. If you told them, this would help management control things better, they would not get enthused. Rather that would alarm them. If they would find it easier to control things and keep the management off their back, there was a slender chance they would listen. The presentation came to an abrupt end when the Finance chap announced he had to leave to attend to the unfinished project report. I had a feeling his bladder was about to burst.
I realised this when mine was full, once I was inside the car on my way back. The driver immediately had denied having seen anything like a wallet. I didn't pursue the matter with him. On the way back I kept thinking about the damage control measures and the possible sites to relieve myself. A thought also kept coming back to my mind that the wallet had gone missing, possibly because I had tried to fend off Lata on my very recent visit to her city. She had insisted on meeting me, when I was desperately looking for transport to reach a resort on the outskirts of her city. Finally I did meet her, but the guilt of having tried to postpone meeting her kept coming back. Then I told myself that it was alright in a particular situation if you did not meet a person that you liked.
By this time, the car had got stuck in a traffic jam, not far from my office. The urge to relieve myself was getting stronger by the minute. I experienced the meaning of fantasy in those minutes. I could see myself running to the open areas on the side of the road, into the nooks and crannies under the flyover being built to eternity and also behind its pillars to relieve myself. The wallet had gone missing from my mind also. Then after an age of time, the traffic cleared and we were on our way to the office. I walked calmly from the parking lot to the office. I reached my room with the great expectation that the pure leather, shining brown wallet would be waiting on my desk. When I didn't see it there, I rushed to the toilet and lost myself completely in the vastly satisfying experience of emptying myself.
I had entertained the idea of calling up the two male Secretaries who sit outside my office. I gave it up on the ground that I had no right to disturb them for my folly. As I returned from the toilet, the thought crossed my mind again and on the same moral ground, I brushed it aside. I came into my room and looked around my desk. And there it was, lying on the ground, my very pretty dark brown pure leather wallet! I thanked my Inner Guide and immediately made plans to suitably felicitate him.
I recalled this was one of a continuing series of instances of my forgetfulness in the last few days. I hoped the series would now come to an end. I blamed it on my late nights spent watching World Cup Soccer. Alas, it doesn't seem to end. Now my glasses, I just left them here, didn't I?