Lost Manju: Reward if Found

Anyone who has ever met me has likely met my blanket Manju as well – because I never go anywhere without it. In fact, Manju is world renowned, as my relatives and friends in the US, India and Mexico know it. While Mommy had tried for a long time to get me to use one of my many beautiful and soft baby blankets, there is something about rough, flammable material that is inherent to a dollar store blanket that I find comforting. So she gave up that battle a long time ago.

Well, the other day Nani, Mommy and I took a walk to the grocery store and I accidentally knocked it out of my stroller just before leaving (Mommy is sure of this as she recalls specifically handing it to me as we approached the checkout line). A block and a half later, Mommy realized that it was missing and ran back to Superama to find it, to no avail. In the days since, no one has turned it in to the lost and found. It seems that in the seven minutes between us leaving the store and Mommy returning to find it, someone with really bad taste and even worse karma has taken Manju.

In the meantime, I have been in serious mourning. Manju has been my security blanket, my best friend and constant companion for half my life, and I find it difficult to sleep, drink milk, or even sit in my car seat without it. Even Mommy misses Manju, but she has tried to explain to me that Manju has been lost. Still, it breaks Mommy and Daddy’s hearts when I repeat over and over again, “Manju lost, Manju gone,” or wake up crying, “I love Manju.” So they have tried to find the roughest, cheapest quality blankets to replace Manju, but they are all either too pretty or too soft to be the real thing. After all, as anyone who has ever seen it can attest, there is only one original Manju.