I live in a different city in India. At 10:30 tonight, I got a call from my friend Karan's sister, and her voice was shaking with nerves. She told me Karan was supposed to reach my hometown today, but something was wrong - he hadn't been answering calls since 9 PM.
According to her, Karan had called their dad at 6:30 to say he'd landed at my hometown's airport. He mentioned he had a meeting to attend, then would head to TREEM. He asked his dad to meet him there by 9:30. When their dad tried calling him at 9 to confirm he'd make it to TREEM on time, Karan's phone was unreachable.
She asked if I knew about any friends he might be meeting. I tried to reassure her - maybe it was something silly, like his phone dying or getting lost (which has happened to him before). I told her to wait a bit longer since the continuous rains in my hometown lately could have caused delays or traffic issues.
I immediately contacted my friend Kavin, who lives in my hometown and could help in emergencies like this. We discussed possible reasons why Karan would go silent after clearly telling his dad he'd reach TREEM by 9:30. We kept thinking along the same lines - dead battery, lost phone, or some other simple explanation. All we could do was wait.
Context about Karan's sister: She lives abroad and is six years older than us. She's one of the most emotionally mature people I've ever met - like a role model during our childhood. As we got older, I lost regular contact with her, though we still text a few times a year. If she's calling me this worried, I know it's serious.
About my friend Kavin: Kavin was at a pub celebrating his close friend Samar's birthday with his wife and another friend, Raina. Raina doesn't drink and had to leave for somewhere else at 5 AM. I called Kavin at 10:45 to fill him in. If we needed to trace Karan's movements from the airport after landing around 7 (when he called his dad), we figured he'd landed around that time since he said he'd reach TREEM by 9:30.
By midnight, still nothing from Karan. We started reaching out to police to file a missing person report. Since we were sure he'd started toward TREEM, we asked his dad to file the complaint at the TREEM police station.
The pub closed at midnight. Kavin had to drop off his friend first, then get Raina's help. Raina needed to drop Samar home, and Kavin had to convince her to help us either drive to the airport or meet Karan's dad on the way. Kavin was stuck in this diplomatic loop - he needed Raina to drive since he'd been drinking, but had to convince her to help. When Kavin met Karan's dad, he could hear the anxiety in his voice and see it written all over his face.
I didn't just inform Kavin - I also called our friend Tony, who's in Columbia. The four of us - Karan, Kavin, Tony, and I - are all school friends. I was calling everyone in our group to find mutual contacts and figure out when anyone had last heard from Karan.
Luckily, Tony had a contact from Karan's workplace. We explained the situation and asked him to post in their work WhatsApp group about the last communication. The mutual friend shared Karan's roommate's contact, and the roommate replied saying Karan's flight was at 9:50 PM. He also shared the flight itinerary and mentioned that Karan had last contacted him to say the flight was delayed.
This made sense! We'd been trying to reach him from 10:30 until 12:15, and kept getting "User is not in coverage area" - because he was on the delayed flight.
We filed the missing person report anyway. Karan's dad was extremely tense and called a couple of his friends for support and mental strength.
We checked the flight status and confirmed the flight was delayed by 40 minutes. I immediately called Karan's sister to explain about the flight delay and asked her to be patient a little longer. I told her his phone probably died around 9 PM, which explains why his dad couldn't reach him then. We couldn't contact him for three hours while he was in flight, and still couldn't reach him after 12:42 when the flight landed - probably because his phone wasn't charged even after landing.
Around 12:53, Karan's dad got a call from Karan. We were relieved but also frustrated and annoyed. I called his sister to let her know everything was fine. We'd been in constant anxiety for nearly three hours.
All our parents were worried sick. These parents have known all of us kids for 14 years, since high school. I don't understand how a grown adult - 29 years old, to be precise - can miscommunicate something as simple as flight timings and delays. You have to be incredibly negligent to cause this kind of situation. All of us had a terrible evening because he couldn't be bothered to communicate properly.
We've noticed Karan's negligent communication and lack of effort for quite some time, but never thought his actions would cause this much anxiety for so many people over 3-4 hours.
