Is there any sane adult who has not lost one or the other key in his or her life? And similarly, found keys which do not fit any locks but are lying around?
Come to my storeroom where I can show you two biscuit tins (of the old days) containing many keys, some rusted, which are quite useless but have been retained just in case they come in handy when other keys are lost. Someone has tried turning a key again and again into a lock and broken it! I find many such broken, where too much of that “turn-key” stuff must have been tried. Goodness me, there are some Godrej almirah keys too—not mine for sure as I don’t have any precious stuff that needs to be locked. Since relatives and others come here looking for keys that might just open their locks for which the keys are lost, they may have kept theirs and are probably looking for them in their own houses. Many of them come to my storeroom to look for string/rope to fasten their bulging boxes/bags where bolts and locks have given way.
I remember the case of my cousin who used to do all her travelling by bus carrying a small purse for small change and her Godrej almirah key. Alas, all her boasting that it could never be accessed by anyone as she could cleverly hide it fell flat, when someone flicked it and it was inexplicably gone. Unfortunately for that person, the Godrej key was useless as he didn’t know the location of the almirah and there wasn’t even sufficient change in the purse for a cuppa. For my cousin, the loss was heavy as she had to get a maistry to break open her G almirah for which she had to cough up a pretty penny, and it was useless thereafter as it could not be locked.
Some years later when inventors found that absent-mindedness led to too many cases of losing keys, they invented the boxes for which you could set a code. No lock was needed for it except to remember the code initials or numbers (eg. it could be 213 standing for your birthday which you knew by heart). My husband’s boss had got one of these for his travels—very impressive indeed until once he forgot whose birthday he had coded in. Several trials later a “break-in” became necessary, most embarrassing for someone dealing with secret “classified files” that were in that box wealth and treasure for those who wanted a scoop. He wished that he was in India where those in the business of breaking locked things didn’t care about many political skeletons that were inside.
My sister used to live in a well-located apartment in Mumbai in those days when the city was called Bombay and many of us—her siblings—who had to come there on work or pass through needed a stopping place. We would walk in at odd hours depending on our flights, and needed a key each for this. Yes, she commissioned a dozen duplicate keys for entry—I dread to think what would have happened if one key got lost and the entire security system affected.
I have many more tragicomic stories of the consequences of losing keys. But tell me: Don’t you think it is a lot better to lose keys than one’s heart to someone who does not return them?