Dubai: Right in the middle of her birthday celebration weekend, her heart skipped a beat.Forty-year-old Abu Dhabi-based Indian resident Ketki Shetty was enjoying her trip to Dubai Mall – having driven to Dubai with her husband and nine-year-old son – when she realised that the gold bracelet on her wrist had gone missing.“Honestly, I started to panic,” she said.While her husband tried to reassure Shetty, asking her to stay at the café with their son, while he went back to look for the bracelet, Shetty says she had lost all appetite.“I ordered some food for my son and then joined my husband in looking for the bracelet,” she said.With the worst thoughts rushing through her mind, she retraced her steps.“We literally went all the way back to our car to see if I had dropped it somewhere,” she said.After almost half an hour hunting, they spoke to a security personnel, who said that if the bracelet had been recovered by someone, it would be sent to the Lost and Found section at the mall and guided them on how to get there.“All the while, my husband kept telling me that I shouldn’t worry. He told me, ‘Let it be. I’ll buy you a new one. If it’s meant to be found, it’ll be found’. But for me, it wasn’t just about the price. The bracelet had sentimental value, it was an anniversary gift that my husband gave me last year,” she said.Clinging to ‘1% hope’As the couple made their way to the Lost and Found section, Shetty said she was clinging on to the faintest hope.“Honestly, I had like 1% hope and I was just praying that someone, anyone, had hopefully found the bracelet and returned it,” she said.That last shred of hope paid off, as Shetty approached the officer at the section.“He asked me for a description of the bracelet and pulled out a box of found items, pulled out the bracelet and asked me, ‘Is this it by any chance?’,” she said.Shetty’s face perhaps answered before she did.After verifying that the bracelet was, in fact, hers by showing a picture she had taken just that day, Shetty gave her ID and received the bracelet back.“A cleaning staff had found it and submitted it to the Lost and Found section. And even though I don’t know who they are, I truly pray that they get all the happiness in the world,” Shetty said.Her experience of the UAE’s safety was not quite over yet.“I carry two phones and left one behind in the cab as we made our way back,” Shetty said, laughing in disbelief at herself.“I honestly don’t know what happened to me that day,” she added.Her husband, too, had the same question, she said, laughing.“We called the number, and the driver very politely answered and said that he had found the phone and would come to the hotel in an hour to return it,” she said.One day, two lost possessions, and two strangers who made sure they found their way back to her. For Shetty, the day’s events only reinforced what she already believed about the UAE: It is the safest country in the world.“It really is a testimony of how great this country is and how honest people here are. I’m really grateful that I got both of those things back,” she said.When Shetty, who works as a licensed content creator in Abu Dhabi, shared her experience on her social media account, the responses she received further cemented that realisation.“There were so many people who had lost items at the Metro, at the station, in malls, and were able to get it back,” she said.There was also something her husband had told her when she was sitting at the café, convinced the bracelet was gone: “If it’s meant to come back to you, you’ll get it.”By the end of her birthday weekend, Shetty had found that sentence proven right twice.Exceptional hospitalityIn a statement to Emirates 24|7 a spokesperson for Dubai Mall said: "At Dubai Mall, the safety and peace of mind of our guests are always our top priority. We are delighted that we could assist in reuniting this visitor with her bracelet, and we remain fully committed to delivering exceptional hospitality and attentive service at every touchpoint."
