💬 Lent my phone to a stranger whose battery had died

I was at the bus stop near Ameerpet last Thursday around 8 PM when a man tapped my shoulder. He was about 50, in a work shirt, holding a dead phone. He said, brother, 1 call, please. My first reaction was no. I've read about SIM swap scams. I have my bank apps on that phone. But he looked so tired. His hands were shaking a little. So I unlocked it and held it out. He dialled from memory, 10 digits without stopping. Then he walked about 10 steps away, talking fast. That's when my stomach dropped. He was 10 steps away with my phone and my bus was 2 minutes out. I kept my eyes on him and drifted closer, pretending to read a bus board I'd already read twice. He noticed. He turned around, smiled and said, sir, I'm not running, my daughter's school van hasn't come. Turns out he was calling the school. The van driver had left her at a different stop and nobody told him. She was fine. She'd walked to a neighbour's shop. He thanked me about 6 times and shook my hand twice. I felt like an idiot for the drifting. I think he knew, because he handed the phone back with both hands. The call took maybe 3 minutes. He left on the next bus and I got mine 6 minutes late. I changed nothing about my phone after. No new password, nothing. I thought about it for a day, that's all. Still, I checked my bank app twice that night. Both times nothing. Both times I felt a bit silly. A colleague said I was reckless. Another said I was a good person. I'd say I was just in a hurry. The conductor didn't care about any of it. He just wanted 15 rupees, exact change.

Drifting closer while pretending to read the bus board is the funniest and most honest part of this. I would have done exactly the same, with my thumb hovering over the lock button. Once a woman asked to borrow mine in a Dilsukhnagar market and I stood beside her for the whole call. She noticed, smiled and said thank you twice. I think we both knew why I stayed.

I handed my phone to a stranger outside a pharmacy so he could call his brother after his own phone died mid emergency.