Of course no alibi shall quite suffice for my absence from my blog, I first tried to buy time over the excuse that I wouldnt blog until I bought my lappy...& when that happened..I told myself that I of course couldnt blog on a regular basis until I had net conection at home...& then I inexplicably resolved to give up everything else outside of work until I was done reading all of the Harry potter books from book 1 through to the Deathly Hallows...& though I have still no net connection at home...there shall be no more stalling.... I AM BACK...!!!
Enough of my histrionics....On with the post then people...!!!)
How it all began.....
It had not yet been even 2 weeks since I had returned home from that wonderful Kodaikanal trip (Oh Shyam...what would I do without friends like you, who arrange for free match tickets & great trips..!!!!) & it was already the First of June....the day I had to leave for Abu Dhabi...
For some reason, not once did it seem to be an intimidating prospect to move to another country, especially one that many ignoramuses of my country still dismiss as a murky islamic state with barbaric rules. Perhaps it was because I was used to going away to places for assignments & that it had become, if not a habit, atleast something quite close to it, to not expect that which I havent been guaranteed & to not fear that which I havent experienced myself...
But naa...this aint the cold indifference that it otherwise sounds like....Rather I would say that it was an overwhelming belief that everything was happening for the good (MY good of course..!!! :P ) & so it was this pleasant mindset that I bid my loved ones goodbye & made my way into the Hyderabad international airport...
All the formalities of international travel & other blah-blah turned out to be no sweat after all (Ok...one guy who turned up near me & gave me his blank immigration form & asked me to fill it for him but refused to reveal his name, passport number, occupation & contact details was a good laugh..!!! )& Although this wasnt actually my first trip outside of India, considering the fact that Bhutan requires neither a visa nor any full-fledged immigration formalities...It could well be said that my first genuine trip abroad was going smoothly so far...
The flight was the usual fare (But why o Why was I given that wretched Indian Airlines, which has now been rather ridiculously named "Indian"...!?!?!?) of course, that is if you ignore the fact that the guy immediately behind of me complained that his seat was getting quite hot (WTF..?!?!) to which he was cordially told to just stay wherever he was & not beckon the air-hostess until he could actually smell his ass burn..!!!
It was finally around 00:15 IST (My watch was still showing Indian time) that I arrived at Sharjah (A guy was to pick me up & drive me to Abu Dhabi)...However, if all sounds incredibly peaceful & boring so far, unfortunately it wasnt to be the case from this point on....
Tales of first overseas journeys often come with their accounts of helplessness & despair & this tale ended up being no different...
Since I had initially been mobilized on a visit visa...I had to go to the sponsoring agency to collect my original visa (I needed to do that to get my a$$ outta there..!!)...what greeted me there wasnt a boring old counter with a few sleepy uncles...It was an army of Indian uncles, aunties, guys, gals, infants & whoever doesnt fit in the aforementioned categories, literally fighting with a single uncle, to whom , it appeared, the most welcome thought at that moment would be to fired outta his job...!!!
& so I joined the mob too....eventually getting to the counter (which wasnt a big deal...everyone was getting to the counter...how long u managed to stay at the counter though, wasnt for u to decide, coz u gotta go where the crowd pushes you..!!!) & handed over my fax copy visa to the counter to which he replied something in an apprarently archaic tongue...I promptly replied that I dint know arabic...but he seemed to merely repeat his earlier mutterings with greater authority...& then it struck me..I hadnt recognized the tongue coz I hadnt been anticipating it...But how could I not realize that he was speaking in Malayalam...the Gulf...the land that has long been unofficially conquered by the Mallus..!!!!! :D
When I finally let him know that I knew none of mallu...he then replied in english & proceeded to look for my visa...
10 minutes...& no sign of my visa yet..Uncle tells me to wait & come back again after around 15 mins...& so I wait...taking this opportunity to soak in whats happening right now...The quick exit I had planned wasnt quite materializing...But, I told myself, its after all no big deal, my visa will be found in no time...
Meanwhile a gujju family (I have lost count of the number of times I have seen Gujju joint families with HOT newlywed brides..!!! :P ) with 2 decent (& I aint referring to their Indian values here people...!!)daughters sorta gave me company coz after all...who would let go of a chance for some solid timepass over "Arey Beta. tumhara visa abhi tak nahi mila...?!?" or "Ab kya karoge tum beta.??..tumhe koi tension nahi hai..??"
20 mins later I return to the visa counter uncle...He searches for 5 mins more...No luck this time either & I am told to repeat the same routine of standing a little distance away & returning with the hope that I arrive at a good muhurat for Uncle to search for my visa...
30 mins since I first arrived at the counter...50 mins...1 hour...An hour & a half...& yet my visa was nowhere to be found....Things had already gotten way outta hand...Now it was no more a question of when I would get my visa & leave, but whether there was any visa of mine at all...& whether I would be allowed to get outta this wretched place...
All of my co-passengers had long since left...More passengers came & left, Emirates, Air-India, Air-Arabia..all gone...& I was left with a mere handful of folks...none of whom had had to endure the ordeal for as long as I had...
With nothing better to do or no more thing for reassurance...I proceeded to give the mallu visa uncle a continued grimace of extreme anger & hatred...
& when it had been 2 hours since uncle had first spoken to me in mallu...uncle called in another guy to help him find my visa....& how long did it take for the new guy to find my visa...??? The whole duration of 2 minutes...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why I had been tormented so much coz of the incomptence of a half-blind officer, I never bothered to know or ask...For now...it was time to get the hell outta here...!!!
When all the relevant visa/passport formalities were done I made a sprint to the baggage claim area hoping that in the enormous delay, my baggage hadnt been assumed to be unclaimed & sent away elsewhere....
But I was spared of another spell of torture coz I found my luggae, wasnt difficult to find, after all, in the whole of the baggage claim area of Sharjah Airport, mine was the only one around...& that too rather conspicuous coz the bags seemed to have toppled over each other....
In all of the chaos...I glanced a look at Sharjah duty-free airports & knew in a hurry why UAE was such a happening destination...It was as if someone had accidentally opened a portal to heaven right in the airport, & on the other side of it, everything seemed to be only made of happiness, fantastic wares & of course...no taxes...!!!!
But there was no time to be spent in the duty-free shop now...not with all that happened already...I resolved to check out duty-frees next time I travelled..Also noting that if this was the Sharjah duty-free, how good would Abu-Dhabi & Dubai duty-frees be..???
Anyways...when I was finally outta my airport...it was 2 AM Indian time (UAE is 1.5 hours behind India)...But if you thought that I already atoned for my sins tonight & had endured enough to deserve a comfy trip back to Abu Dhabi....well, it wasnt quite meant to be yet....
I found no signs of anyone waiting for me...No placards...the few sleepy drivers hanging around seemed to have nothing to do with the likes of me...
I walked up to the parking lots looking around for some car, some person who would emerge as an angel to save me from what was becoming a nightmare, but apparently, none was around of that description...
So now I had managed to get outta the Airport...but was stranded just outside of it...With no means to go anywhere beyond...
I checked out my mob...& although I knew my Airtel connection from Trichy wouldnt do me any good in Sharjah...To see the service going blank at this moment felt like someone had made me breathe through freezing water...
But there had to be phone booths here somewhere, there always are some in Indian airports....This unearthly was no time to call my HR but by all means, this was a time to panic...
& I did find phone booths- a couple of them...& yet when I looked around for a slot to drop coins into...I could find none...& then I saw why.... The phone was operated not on a coin-mechanism...but by means of swiping an Etisalat (Thats the numero-uno telecom provider across much of the middle east & the african arab countries) card through a slot provided...much like a credit card machine...
My dirham coins were no good to me anymore..!!!!.I could have bought a calling card from the duty-free shop back at the airport...But now I would never be let in...I was stuck outside an airport which I had been struggling to get out of, with noone to receive me...no mobile connection, with money that could do me no good
This was too painful to be true...It just didnt sink in...This wasnt meant to end up as the horrifying nightmare that it had become...I had become an unofficial prisoner in an islamic state where I knew none except my HR correspondent & noone would believe that I was an official employee because I had arrived on a visit visa...
With my face sunk in my hands & with my body involuntarily contorting itself in a stae of extreme frustration & despair, I must have made a rather disturbing sight at the few sleepy drivers hanging around at that god-forsaken hour...
There was nothing more that could be done....I had to somehow brave the night & then think about how I was to go from Sharjah Airport to Abu Dhabi...The fact that I didnt even know where I was to stay now made my cavernous, cob-webbed room in pearl hostel appear so inviting....
Yes..if only I could have stayed back in my college...never be drawn by the riches that have blinded me...remained a worthless urchin for life....if only...if only...
Something shook me off my dreamy state...the hands of my watch had rearranged themselves to show that the time was now 3 AM IST...& then outta the murky darkness came a man...looking like he had been woken up roughly while he had been dreaming of wonderful desert babes & wanting nothng more than to be told to go back to sleep again...In one hand he held a cigarette that was calously held in 2 fingers....& in the other...No..!!! It couldn't be....But it really was..He was holding a placard with my own name & the company name on it..!!!!!!!!
I walked up to him like a crazed man & told him in what unintentionally ended up sounding like an order..."You have come to pick me..!!!!"
He looked like someone had just smashed a bottle on his head...But his expression of sheer shock was now what my face must have had when I saw him with a placard of my name...
No time was wasted...We hurried into the car & within no time we were on the road...AT LAST..!!!
On the way....he told me that he himself had been waiting for me for 3 hours & had made up his mind to return to Abu Dhabi thinking that I had probbaly postponed my journey & had just returned as a final confirmation. Well, what could I say, if luck had deserted me so far, at least the last shreds of it had miraculously rescued from what would otherwise have been, an incomprehensible struggle...
Something told me that the pain was all over...It was gonna be fine from now..& I sunk into the plush seats of the fine car that had been sent for me...marvelling at the outstanding 10-lane freeways that have yet never been seen on Indian roads...but are a common feature across all of UAE's streets...
All of the driver's words about how he had left Kerala (Of course...how could be anything other than Mallu..?!?), about how he coudnt believe that a 21 year old was offered as much as I was...blah-blah, washed over me like a pleasant stream of shallow water as I soaked in the lovely street lights that seemed to be so much higher & golden...nothing like what I ever got to see in India....
It would be too difficult to stay awake now...& so I sunk into my comfortable seat & slipped into a delightfully comforting nap...with faint visions of seeing beautiful streets & houses as if from, a distant mirror...
& then I was finally woken up by my savior when we had arrived & when I saw, where we had come, my jaw had nearly dropped of...
"I am to stay at the Millenium Hotel..?!?!" said I with a look of wonder that found expression inspite of my overwhelming fatigue...
"Yes Sir...you will be fine...Just tell them your name & our company name & everything will be done..Goodnight..!!!" & he was off into the night...
& so it was that I walked into the reception , where I was received most warmly by a delightful filipino gal who immeddiately summoned a bell-boy to take away my luggae & show me my room...
Perhaps I wasnt prepared to hear my mother tongue being spoken to me here in the middle east, especially when I was too dazed to register anything of what was happening...But now I realized that the bell-boy(who turned out to be Bangladeshi) had obviously figured out my ethnicity coz of my surname & had taken this chance to talk to someone who shared his own native tongue...
While the lift made its way up to my floor...It stopped in between & then entered a woman of such unearthly beauty as cannot be described, with fierce blue eyes & dark-blonde hair...& though such features are distinctly caucasian...there was something distinctly, may I say it, "Aryan" about her facial disposition that made her that much more stunning...I had just come face-to-face with the most beautiful human female race on the planet...the Lebanese...!!!
But she wasnt alone...in came 2 Arabs....complete with their full-body white robes & the queer piece they wear over their heads...with a look of intense madness & they gazed longingly at the beauty next to me...eyeing her in full-detail, resting particularly long to admire that part of her body where, either God, or a lucky surgeon had been very generous to her, & then greedily licked their lips...to which the lady merely responded with an inviting stare & a bite of her lips...It was all too obvious what was gonna happen...There was gonna be a threesome starting any moment now not too far from me.... If only the folks back home could see what was happening here..."Conservative" & "Strict"...??? I couldnt help laughing in mockery at those poor ignoramuses back home....
& then...I entered my delightful room..at 5:22 AM IST...So wonderful...So much more than what I could have asked for & switched on the TV as though it was the right thing to do at the moment...& the TV came to life with a wonderful female voice saying "Welcome to the Millenium Hotel Abu Dhabi, Mr. Bhattacharya"...!!!
It had to be heaven...or a heavenly dream..Nothing else could explain how wonderful the bed felt...how everything seemed to go from a horrific nightmare to a state where nothing more could be asked for...
& thus...I slipped into a most delicious trance....oblivious that at the other end of it I was to wake up to my first day in the United Arab Emirates,...My first day in Abu Dhabi,..My first day...as an NRI...!!!
(...To be Continued..)
