When educator Ghazi Taimoor was strolling down London’s Shoreditch High Street, he stumbled upon a brown wallet on the ground. Right away, he scanned the area to see who could be its owner, but it seemed they were already lost in the bustling crowd.
“I could imagine that someone had dropped their wallet and that they were probably panicking somewhere,” said Taimoor. “I couldn’t think of anything else but to hunt them down.”
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The moment sparked an arduous social media quest that won over South Asian Twitter. Taimoor began live-tweeting his attempts to find the wallet’s owner, a certain “Rahul.”
He frantically scoured Google, Facebook and Instagram to get some leads but to no avail. A timely LinkedIn search helped him narrow down potential candidates.
“LinkedIn says Rahul works for a UK Food and Beverage company. Has to be him! I’m going to call their head office now. Google Maps searching their Head Office,” Taimoor tweeted.
After identifying Rahul’s office building, Taimoor rolled out a series of hilarious tweets comparing himself to a Bollywood heroine on a journey in search of her long lost lover. “I started tweeting it in a Bollywood manner that, ‘Oh, I’m looking for Rahul’ – obviously ‘Rahul’ being the protagonist for a lot of famous Bollywood films,” said Taimoor.
A flood of positive reactions to Taimoor’s dramatizations started pouring in from Indian and Pakistani Twitter.
“I was shocked beyond belief on how this blew up so quickly,” said Taimoor. “A lot of people reached out to me, thanking me for this small act of kindness for a stranger.”
As Taimoor approached Rahul’s office building, he decided to treat himself to one quick coffee.
Finally, Taimoor located the office while Desi Twitter held its breath in collective suspense. The much-awaited meeting happened at long last. A bewildered Rahul was pleasantly surprised at their unexpected encounter.
“He was really happy and shocked to see someone turn up out of nowhere. He was very pleased to see a stranger just come in and return the wallet over to him,” said Taimoor.
The viral incident has been widely celebrated across social media and the local press in India and Pakistan.
“It brought up humanity on both sides of the border, for which I am very grateful,” said Taimoor.
“If strangers can be kind to one another, regardless of their differences of identity both physically and in virtual spaces, I think we can build a beautiful world out of that.”
Follow Rimal Farrukh on Twitter.
