As a kid, it’s always been one of my biggest fears – getting lost in a huge place and not being able to find a familiar face. I have watched Bollywood movies where siblings have been parted as kids and have suddenly found each other when they grow up and then there’s always some kind of song they sing to reminisce about the past days before they were parted. Now my problem is that I never had one of those songs as part of my childhood to sing to my siblings if we ever did get parted and then met up after so many years. As luck would have it, we never did get parted or lost so the need for the song never really arose.

Today I faced one of my fears as a mother. I had taken the kids, my sister in law and niece to Westgate Shopping Mall as East FM had a roadshow going on and after my on air duties I was to pass by and be with my colleagues who had been running around all morning. After the work duties were over, we ambled over to the food court area and the kids had their favourite junk food treat and we started descending down the escalator. Now my Dream Girl is tall and gangly and finds escalators very dodgy so always opts to take the stairs. So my sister in law, niece and Dream Girl took the stairs while Googlee wanted to come down the escalator with me. When we reached down one floor we bumped into my boss Sudhir Vidyarthi and his lovely wife and some of the East FM crew ordering coffees. I was invited to join them but declined as we wanted to head off home. We said our byes and headed down the second escalator and my sister in law and I saw the word SALE outside a shop and we both went in to check it out. The kids were with us and then suddenly we couldn’t find Googlee anywhere.

I didn’t panic right away. He’s not the type to wander off and many times I have sat both kids down and told them the dangers of wandering off so they’re pretty disciplined like that. My sister in law and niece went one to look for him and Dream Girl went the other. I searched around the area of the shop I was in just in case he showed up somewhere. First I thought he’d probably gone off to the washroom. To me, he’s too young to be walking off into public restrooms himself and he must have been all of 3 years old when he decided it’s uncool to be seen in a ladies washroom so I had to make an executive decision to allow him to go into the gents restrooms himself as I guarded the outside. He hasn’t yet reached the stage where this will immensely embarrass him so I’ll keep doing it.

I didn’t panic right away. He’s not the type to wander off and many times I have sat both kids down and told them the dangers of wandering off so they’re pretty disciplined like that. My sister in law and niece went one way to look for him and Dream Girl went the other. I searched around the area of the shop I was in just in case he showed up somewhere. First I thought he’d probably gone off to the washroom. To me, he’s too young to be walking off into public restrooms himself and he must have been all of 3 years old when he decided it’s uncool to be seen in a ladies washroom so I had to make an ‘executive decision’ to allow him to go into the gents restrooms himself as I guarded the outside. He hasn’t yet reached the stage where this will immensely embarrass him so I’ll keep doing it.

Anyway we couldn’t find him anywhere and I started panicking and asked the security guard if he had seen Googlee. Because Googlee was wearing his ‘Heelies’ (trainers with wheels on them) the guard remembered him and said he’d seen him about 5 minutes before. He went ahead and started searching for him and I started looking for him too. All sorts of thoughts came into my head. He’s been taken for child slavery, I will have to send copious amounts of cash for his return to unknown gangsters who might cut off his fingers if I didn’t comply, and a whole host of other nasty things when suddenly my phone started ringing. I ignored it. I had to look for my son first. It rang again and instinct made me answer the unknown number that was flashing on my screen and after listening to what the other person was saying I nearly burst into tears.

My clever little Googlee, upon realising he was lost, made his way to the security guards at the main entrance of the mall and asked them to phone me. I’m so glad I took the time to teach my kids my phone number and have counselled them on what to do if they ever get lost at a busy place.

Within minutes I was reunited with my son who had kept a brave face throughout and as soon as he saw me he burst into tears and made me cry as well. I was just glad to have my brave little boy back by my side and suddenly the young man who thought it was uncool to hold Mum’s hand in the mall was holding onto my hand and kept hugging me and thanking his sister for being kind enough to go looking for him. The three of us had a very ‘Awww Moment’ and broke into a group hug. As one does, of course.