“Papa, the girls are through with the rides here. Where are you?”

It was my son, calling from the children’s section of the Global Village.

Let me explain to the uninitiated that Global Village is a 1.5 million square metre complex popular for its shows and pavilions in Dubai. And, let me explain to the conventional that my son was referring to his two daughters by the modern term, ‘girls’. Finally, let me explain to the young readers (because the senior ones already know it) that after a certain age one is more keen on being parked near a loo than on a ride that shoots to the sky at lightening speed and drops so rapidly that some riders fail to prevent the first flow of a warm stream wetting their pants in resonance with the pull of gravity.

I don’t need a ride to mobilise such liquid movement; just a thought is sufficient for the urge to materialize. Of course, one does not reveal such delicate information before the kith and kin, though it’s an entirely different matter that they guess one’s condition by the shifty movements and the strategic placement of shopping bags or newspapers.

While my son and his wife and their daughters were busy near the swings, my wife and I were ensconced on a bench in close proximity of a toilet.

“We are near the Grand Dhaba, at the side of the Floating Market, son!” I answered. I wasn’t lying, those two establishments were adjacent to the toilet.

“OK, we are coming.”

They came, left Inaya and Aavya and a pram and some bags in our custody, and suggested, “You can take them on that bus ride and then to that movie show till we return.”   

I wonder why children and even some adults opt for “that bus ride”. That battery-run dwarf metal structure hardly accommodates twelve children, moves like an earthworm, and covers the same area that one has already surveyed on foot. I mean, if you are conversant with a car ride, you cannot expect anything further from that bus ride.

Clearly, I am in the minority. Inaya and Aavya ran to the bus, occupied the front of the open deck, and waved vigorously at us. The bus started crawling. I started taking the mandatory video clip that is never seen and simply deleted when the phone becomes sluggish after some months. My wife limped to usurp a fragment of a bench occupied by two persons.

The bus was back before a toddler could count from one to ten. We greeted the children as if they had returned after a sea voyage in the 19^th Century. So much had changed since they went on that trip! Inaya had started feeling cold on a March evening in Dubai. Blessed with the women’s sixth sense of finding hidden objects, my wife extracted a jacket from a pile of junk in the pram.

“Wear it,” she asked Inaya.

“What about Aavya?” I asked.

“She is already wearing it!” Snapped my wife.

I don’t like to surrender cheaply, but the odds of my winning an argument were rather few at the moment. I started walking like an epitome of gracefulness.

“I don’t expect them to return soon,” my wife thought aloud.

We started walking to the theatre. We, i.e., Aavya, my wife, and I. Tired after the bus ride, Inaya wanted to travel in the pram. We emptied the pram. Inaya stepped in, toppled it, and regained balance.

We started walking to the theatre again. Aavya stopped us.

“Isn’t it unfair that my elder sister gets a pram ride while I must walk?” She asked.

A big salute to the pram manufacturer—the pram accommodated both of them.

We started walking to the theatre for the third time. My wife carried the bags, I pushed the pram.

A show was on at the amphitheater.

“Let’s buy the tickets when the next movie starts,” I advised no one in particular. By then, Inaya had already jumped out of the pram and started running down the aisle.

Aavya looked at us in confusion.

“There are no tickets here,” my wife informed. “Inaya,” she called above the gallery, “take Aavya with you.”

Inaya had already started enjoying the movie and was in no mood to forsake her seat.

“I’m buying popcorn,” my wife called again.

Inaya grabbed the popcorn packet and started running back.

“Take Aavya with you,” my wife reminded her.

Inaya slowed down a tad, kept her eyes glued on Masha and the Bear, and spoke with a mouthful of popcorn, “Come, Aavya!”

We settled down on a nearby bench. My wife started inspecting her swollen feet. I started looking at the families perched on grass with food enough to feed a village in Somalia. 

“Don’t ogle at the women, keep your focus on our children,” my wife admonished me.

There they were, two figures clad in identical jackets, almost lost in a crowd of humanity.

A sudden burst of firecrackers jolted me. Fireworks had started. All eyes remained fixed on the sky at a corner of the Global Village for the entire two or three minutes till the display continued. Back on terra firma, I noticed that my son and his wife and their two daughters were standing together not far from us.

Inaya and Aavya rejoined us after the movie was over. We were ready to go home after they had fun at the Turkish ice-cream kiosk and we had a generous fill of coconut ice-cream.    

“A nice outing,” my son’s wife observed as we reached the approach road of our neighborhood.

We murmured in agreement. The taste of the coconut ice-cream still lingered on my palate.

“Where is my jacket,” asked Inaya.

While my son and I were on the front seats, Inaya and Aavya were sitting sandwiched between their mother and grandmother.

“You are not wearing it?” Both ladies asked, looking at her.

I looked at Inaya.

My son was driving. He didn’t turn his head, but might have looked at her from the rear view mirror.

All of us, including Inaya, were now certain that she wasn’t wearing her jacket.

“I gave it to you when you got down from the bus,” my wife remarked.

She admitted, “Yes!”

“You were not wearing it when you were watching the fireworks!” My son accused.

“Papa, it was so hot that I couldn’t keep wearing it,” she retorted in a weak voice.

“I’m still wearing my jacket!” Aavya declared.

“So you left it in the theatre! When will you learn to take care of your belongings?” Her mother was getting angry.

Inaya started crying.

“If you cry, I will drop you right here,” her mother threatened.

The atmosphere was becoming tense. I shuffled in my seat. Something rubbed against my shoes. It was a plastic packet. I might have kept Inaya’s jacket in that packet, I thought. I picked it up.

“Here is a jacket,” I started triumphantly, only to lower my voice immediately, “but it is mine!”

If my son and his wife and my wife and Inaya cursed me, the malediction completely escaped my senses.

“How old was it?” I had inadvertently started using past tense for the object.

“May be, two or three years! And I had bought it at a discount sale for only four or five hundred rupees.” My son’s wife was clearly attempting to trivialize the loss.

“That is hardly 22 dirhams which is less than what we pay for a haircut at a not-so-decent salon,” I observed.

“Hmm … let’s order chicken burgers for all except Padma and Inaya,” my son said. 

His wife, Padma, cannot stand meat in food. His daughter, Inaya, cannot stand anything other than meat in food.

“Why no chicken burgers for me,” Inaya shrieked between sobs.

“It’s a punishment for losing that jacket,” my son replied.

Inaya looked at her grandmother, important communication was held between the two in complete silence, and Inaya looked comfortable again. My wife must have conveyed that she would secretly exchange her chicken burger with Inaya’s vegetarian dish.

“Should I go back to Global Village?” My son pondered over his chicken burger.

“No point! The entry ticket costs more than the book value of that jacket,” his wife advised.

“Then?” He asked.

“I’ll call the Lost & Found department there,” she said.

About 40 thousand people visit the Global Village every day. The children’s theatre runs several back-to-back shows. Each show is attended by more than hundred children and adults from Asia, Africa, and other continents. Only the most optimistic can expect to reclaim a carelessly left jacket under the circumstances.

My son’s wife called up Global Village. A two-minute wait and some more calls later, she was connected to the Lost & Found executive.

“See, my daughter left her jacket in the kids’ theatre at around nine this evening. It’s a white jacket with pink polka dots … no, it’s a pink jacket with white cheetah prints …”

“Well, the shows continue till two in the morning. If our cleaning staff finds it, it would be deposited at the Lost & Found”. Please call up at six tomorrow evening,” came a polite reply.

Wouldn’t a 22-dirham jacket challenge the honesty of a low-paid cleaner, in the remote chance of none of the hundreds of viewers having already walked out with it, we asked ourselves.

The son’s wife called them the next day.

“Do you have a picture of the jacket?” She was asked.

She sent the picture over WhatsApp.

“Yes, it is here! Please come to the exit and ask for being taken to the Lost & Found department. You don’t have to buy a ticket for that,” came the advice.

She went to the designated place. There it was, neatly folded, on the table. My son’s daughter had successfully extracted a needle from the haystack.

We were happy. Our faith in morality, human values, and management systems had risen further.