ALMOST WITHOUT A PASSPORT

The destination after Amsterdam was the Hustle-Bustle Brussels. The inception of my trip in Brussels was full of excitement and frustration. All my way to Brussels, Pushkar and I kept hurling ideas about adding a novelty factor to the trip….and we almost surpassed our endeavour in doing so.

Reached Brussels station at 3ish after a few beautiful hours on track. The station was massive-mall like with shopping centres, bouquet stores, restaurants, food joints and thieves.

Just before we could exit from the station, Pushkar decided to grab some grub from one of the joints. I stood outside the joint with folded hands and the two strolleys by my side. I placed Pushkar's laptop bag on one of the strolleys. Let it suffice to say that this bag had both our passports.

When my wait was just about to get boring, a thug came from nowhere, burgled the laptopbag and my boredum. He quickly picked the bag, and on a count of 2 winks, he started to run with it. I winked no more and ran after him, hollering…catch him!!!, catch him!!!

Brussels being cold, I was loaded with wool. Believe it! I was wearing two pairs of socks. With all the wool enhancing my weight, I could barely run as fast as the thick skinned thug.

Did I Give up??? No ways, I ran floors after floors, jostled my way wobbling and panting, just to get my hand on the thug's collar first and then on my bag.
The bystanders witnessed the chase with least intention of any action from 'em.
There was only one young guy who dared an attempt to run a few steps with me, but those steps remained a few.

When I was about to take the stairs which the thug took, I saw two cops at the other end of the stair case standing there with my laptop bag. My ecstasy at that moment cannot be explained adequately.

I shook hands with the cops, but couldn’t thank them enough. And let me not forget to mention …, those cops were handsome twosome with brawn and enviable heights.
I sat on the stairs, held my bag tight, took a deep breath and even before I could sigh for relief, I realized that I had abandoned the other two strolleys.
Held my sigh and ran back to the food joint. Pushkar was waiting with the strolleys, and was guessing that I may be hiding behind one of the pillars waiting to ambush him, which I usually do. But, no sooner he saw me with a face so deprived of verve; he wiped the smile off his face and sensed that something went wrong with me.

Slurring and gasping, I narrated the incident.
He patted my back, curled me into his arms and said “well done baby"