It all began in the morning itself. I was still sleeping and then suddenly the bell rang. I was expecting the news paper guy or something like that, but to my surprise, it was Akhilesh and Bhaskar, waiting there. They have just completed their shift has come directly to my place, just to meet me one last time.
I was speechless. Sometimes these kind of small gestures leaves you impressed for a long time. Anyway a great start to the day, and a lots to look out for. After all I was waiting for this day for a long long time.
Bhaskar and Akhilesh made themselves comfortable, while I just freshened up. Bhaskar being himself made sure that both Rahul and Vicky is on their feet as well. After some time, they call Ashish as well, and poor Ashish, who stays somewhere near Electronic City, came all the way to Kumarswamy Layout on his own. I just cant believe that, Hats off to you dude. I really appreciate that.
They all are having a ball together. I introduced Vicky to Akhilesh, saying that Akhilesh has a lots of contact with girls, and as you might know, that’s the only provocation that guy will ever need to be on his feet. He made sure that, for the next 1 hour, Akhilesh wont breadth easy even for a moment.
But I had to rush a lots of stuff. As always, I had postponed almost every small details till the end. So once Bhaskar is here, he took me along with him to Big Bazar to buy some small stuff and its already 12.30PM and we were planning to leave home by around 2.00 – 2.30 PM. Somehow we managed to reached home on time. Shariff has come down by that time and was waiting for me. Nice to see him as well. This guy is always there for his friends, whenever they need him. I have never seen anyone else who is so sold on the concept of friendship.
After I reached home Shariff went out to look for a City Taxi. In fact he found out various rates of city taxi as well. It’s almost 1.30 by now. I was suppose to have lunch at Polly’s place.
In the mean time, Ashish, Akhilesh and Bhaskar just left and India was playing against Australia in the 1st match of the series. This was india’s 1st match after the victory in Twenty-20 world cup. So everyone was excited. I wish I could watch the match as well.
While I was at Polly’s place Nagen called and he told us that he will be coming with his car to drop me at airport and hence there is no need to book a city taxi. Sounds like music to my ear.
We came back from Polly’s place at around 2.30 and Nagen also reached my place with his car by that time. So finally it’s time to say good bye to this place. Tough, but I had to do it, there are no two ways about it.
We, me, Nagen, Polly and Shariff somehow adjusted in the car after putting all my luggage. Rahul and Vicky came by my bike. We reached airport well on time.
I was a bit surprised to find Bandhu in airport, totally unexpected. He came with another guy, may be his roommate. It was nice to see so many people in the airport, I never expected this.
There was a small photo session in the airport as well. Unfortunately Bandhu somehow missed all this.
Finally the moment has come to say good bye to all of them and move in for check-in. I will remember this moment for the rest of my life. I have spent 7 long years in this city (Bangalore). I know I don’t belong to that city, but still leaving Bangalore was tough for me. I will always have a special relation with this city. Whatever I am today is just because of this city. I guess I should write another blog on Bangalore sometime later.
I walked up to the Jet Airways counter for check-in. Completed the necessary formalities. I was carrying just one copy of the printed ticket, as I thought that the Jet Airways guys will give me all 3 boarding passes together. But to my surprise, they took my only copy of the ticket and issued me the boarding pass of Bangalore Mumbai flight. For a moment, I was speechless. Then I realized that I still have time on my hand and anyway the flight was delayed by around 45 minutes. So I started looking for a cyber café inside the airport, but there was none. So as a last option I called Rahul. Send him my email address and password and asked him to take a few print outs of my tickets. Rahul came back after around 30 minutes with the copy of the tickets. It was a big relief.
In the mean time there was a lots of calls from various people. I first called up my parents to inform that I have reached the airport and now will be leaving for Mumbai. After that called up Manab, so that I can talk to Ainu, but then that guy was not at home. Received a call from Nau Mama, he asked me the details about the Visa and when am I coming back, and other details. I always appreciate him for his interest in learning new things. After some time Ainu also called. Its really nice to talk to her as usual. Missing her too much these days.
At around 7 PM I cleared the security check as well. Sunita called just before boarding the flight, and after sometime Joy called as well. Its really irritating, when your flight just keeps on getting late and you never know how much more you have to wait. And if you have a connecting flight to catch, then it could get more interesting.
Anyway finally at around 7.45 PM the flight left for the runway. Just the moment the flight took off, it started raining in Bangalore. Remember I said I wish I could watch the match being played at Bangalore, I guess God just listened to it. The flight flew just over the stadium and I had a nice view of the game without a ticket. May be that will be the last of Bangalore I will ever see.
I reached Mumbai at around 8.45 PM. Just collected my luggage from the belt. In Mumbai domestic airport, they have a system of internal busses to take passenger from Domestic Airport to International Airport and vice versa. For that you have to take a free ticket from the counter and they will announce the ticket number’s which will travel by the next bus. They can take 30 passengers at a time. I liked the system, till I saw something mind blowing in Atlanta airport. More about that later.
After reaching the International airport in Mumbai, we (Me, Anthony, Deepu, Joy (All from SDI), and one more lady from SSI) stand in a queue in front of the Delta Airlines counter. The immigration officers are coming and checking the passport, visa and other details of the passengers. The officer asked my when am I coming back from US, as I am not sure of that, I told him that I don’t know, but it should be around a few months. That guy looked at my face and told me that since I am traveling on a business visa, I must have a return ticket, to show that I am not jumping countries, and since I don’t have a return ticket, I have to buy a return ticket right now.
I told him that, its not possible for me to buy a return ticket right now, and since all the arrangement has been done by my office they should have taken care of all these formalities. He asked me, where do I work. I told him. Then he asked me, if I have any letter from Infosys Technologies Limited, saying that I am traveling on their business. I showed him the port of entry, and invitation letter. He asked for my Infosys Technologies Limited, employee badge as well, along with my passport and ticket. Informing me that, he cant allow me to go ahead at this point as my papers are not proper and he needs to talk to his boss regarding my case, he asked me to wait at the corner till he comes back. There I was looking at others clearing the immigration with ease, was just calling God to help me, at this hour. For a moment I thought my journey is over at Mumbai only.
The immigration office came back after around 10 minutes. The tension is showing up at my face. The office came close to me with a stony face, I thought its all over, lets get back to Bangalore now. But to my surprise, he told me that he had a long chat with his boss and decided that although its not legal to allow someone to leave India on a business visa, without a return ticket, they are making an exception in my case, as I am an genuine employee of Infosys Technologies Limited, which is a very reputed organization in India.
I thanked God thousand times and then proceeded to the second round of immigration check. This time the office was not interested in the details, and he just asked my where am I flying and why. He just checked my passport for originality.
So finally its time to fly. I came to the Terminal 18, from where, the flight (DL 017) was suppose to take off. There is no sight of the rest of the Infosys team. I just waited for some more time, and then called Anthony to see where are they. I just found out that they are having their dinner and will be coming for the security check.
Finally the boarding was announced for Zone 4. ( I was in zone 4). I proceeded for the queue. Again just before boarding the flight they have another round of security check. Here they will open your carry-on bag and will physically check each and every item in it. After you complete that, they will do a body check, where in you have to remove your shoes, and they will even check the inside of the shoe as well. It seems like the Americans are just paranoid about their security.
After all these, finally I am inside the aero plane. Its going to be a very long journey, nearly 17 hours. We would be flying over Pakistan, Afghanistan, several Russian colonies, Moscow, Denmark, Norway, Greenland, Canada and finally US. Its almost 1.30 in the morning, and I was really hungry and exhausted. Although I felt like I will just doze off, I had to wait for the food as I will die if I don’t eat anything right now. Luckily the food came just after the take off, I eat as much as I could and then drunk a bottle of red wine. The wine was superb. I went off to a slumber immediately after I finished.
I guess we were flying over Pakistani air space by that time. The last thing I remember was seeing the flight, flying over Quetta. It was flying towards north instead of going to west. The Google earth system to locate the flight’s current location was really nice.
New York is still 17 hours away.
