About two years ago I lent my good camera tripod to a colleague called Arjun, and I'm still waiting to see it again. I'm a wedding photographer in Delhi, so equipment matters a lot to me, and this was a really solid, expensive tripod that I'd saved up for.
Arjun was a junior photographer at the studio where I used to work. He's a nice guy, quite young and enthusiastic, and he'd just started doing small shoots on his own at weekends to build a portfolio.
He needed it for a landscape shoot in the mountains. He was going on a trip to Himachal and wanted to try long-exposure photos of rivers and stars, and you can't really do that without a steady tripod. He asked me on a Friday afternoon, and I happily said yes, because I remembered how hard it was when I was starting out and couldn't afford proper gear.
When he came back he said he'd return it the following week, and then it just never happened. A few months later he moved to a studio in Mumbai. I reminded him twice, and both times he apologised and said he'd courier it, but nothing arrived.
At first I was annoyed, mainly because I'd been generous and it felt like he didn't value that. Then I felt a bit foolish for not asking sooner. After a while, though, I accepted it. I don't think he meant to steal it. He's just disorganised. I've seen his photos online, and they're very good, so in a strange way I like to think my tripod helped him. But I've definitely become more careful about what I lend and to whom.