|
If there is
one thing I am sure about in life, it is the unfailing stupidity of people.
Even though my visa was as good as confirmed, I still had this niggling feeling
that something somewhere would go wrong and it would get further delayed. I
didn’t even confirm my tickets till the very last minute.
Fortunately,
things panned out and I finally had my visa in hand. And just to make up for
what they’d made me go through, they gave me
year long visa (which didn’t seem very useful to me at the time, but
considering the fact that I have extended my stay from 3 months to 7, it proved
to be a blessing in disguise).
The next
four days were probably the most hectic and tortuous days of my life. I slept
for a total of 10 hours, spent most of my time running around, buying currency,
shopping for last minute things, confirming tickets and the usual inanities
that one is left to deal with before departure. And just to add the little bit
extra, the maternal unit, who by the way is always robustly healthy when she is
back home in India,
fell violently sick. So apart from doing my own pre departure nonsense, I had
to do hers as well, while taking her to the hospital almost everyday for her
tests and shots.
At this
point, I was dead, actually beyond dead. But somehow, I trudged along and apart
from a few misses here and there, did manage to do most of the things that I
had need to before departure. But, as is the case in the life of Tushar, there
still were some final nuggets of crap that had to hit the fan. And so they did.
My travel
agent, who generally spends hours talking about things that should generally
take five minutes, forgot to mention that she hadn’t called the airlines to
confirm my visa for Dubai.
This is something I found out, a little over twelve hours before my flight. Fortunately,
the airline was kind enough to make my bookings at the last minute. The only
catch was that I had to go all the way to Nariman Point in the morning to
collect my coupons. It literally meant that everything had to go perfectly for
me to make the flight, as it takes at least an hour and a half to get to
Nariman Point from Navi Mumbai.
The next
morning, we were ready on time and waiting for the cab to arrive, when the cab
guy called and told us that he would be a little late as he had some car
trouble. So, we left half an hour late.
And in true
murphyesque tradition, there was a traffic jam. And we reached the office with
two and a half hours before my flight’s departure. Now, anyone who has been to
town during lunch hour will know that driving to the airport is a complete
gamble, there are times when you literally zip through and then there are times
when you spend half your day there. Unfortunately, we experienced the latter. (Of
course, it wasn’t half a day, but it did take an hour and a half).
By the time
we arrived, we just had 45 minutes to departure. The steward, when he saw our
ticket, flatly refused to check us in. And of course, at this point, my mother
blew a fuse and blamed me for everything, terming me irresponsible, careless,
lazy and an assortment of other delightful qualities. And I don’t know if this
was the case, but the steward actually seemed to sympathies with me (All hail
the brotherhood of universally nagged sons), he actually interrupted my mother
and said he’d check with the pilot. Thanks to the unfailing ability of MIAL,
the flight was late and we were allowed to check in. I guess nagging can be
good sometimes.
The flight
to Dubai was uneventful
thankfully, considering the ordeal everything else had been. Although, I generally
hate taking halts, this time I really needed one, just to get some sleep. I
finally thought that things would go smoothly now.
But, I woke
up the next morning, with a fever and puking my intestines out. A few meds and
a bit of reiki (believe me, it does work, at least for me) from dad relieved me
a little, but I was still pretty fucked by the time I got to the airport. I
wasn’t sure how I was going to survive a 15 hour direct flight.
But, I
guess like most things that week, I just trudged along and stopped thinking
about it. Dubai
airport did a pretty good job of distracting me. The place is like a retail
orgy and has one of the most awesome bookstores I have seen. Of course,
considering my bankrupt status, I had to restrict myself just to browsing. But,
it was fun nonetheless. Although, I still regret not buying the super cheap
black label available at the duty free store, as it is ridiculously expensive
here in Brazil.
Once I was
done ogling at the books and DVDs, I had to run to the gate because they’d just
made the final call. A few dirty looks from the airlines staff and a lot of
huffing and puffing later, I was in the plane. After all the disasters and
hiccups along the way, I was finally on my way to Brazil.
The flight
was another ordeal, even though Emirates is one of the most efficient and
customer friendly airlines I have ever seen. The food is awesome, the in flight
entertainment selection is pretty varied and their staff is extremely good (not
like those assholic old hacks from that other airlines that we all take because
it is the cheapest). The problem was the fact that it was a 15 hour flight and no
matter how hard I try, I just cannot sleep on a plane and there are only so
many movies that one can watch. I spent half my time walking around the cabin,
by which time most people on the plane thought that I either having a violent
fit of diarrhea or was just plain retarded. On top of all this, I was still
pretty sick and most people walking to the toilet felt the need to elbow my
bloody aisle seat. It got even better towards the latter half of the flight,
when someone with serious gastric problems (at least by the smell of it),
decided to release noxious gases for a big chunk of the flight. You thought Chinese
torture was bad; you should try breathing recycled farts on an airplane for a
good part of 3 hours.
The problem
with most flights is that the closer you get to the destination, the slower the
time passes. So the last three hours of my flight felt more like ten hours and
I was on the verge of losing it.
Once we
were finally over Sao Paulo,
I can honestly say that never in my life have I felt so much relief at the
sight of a city.
The airport
at Sao Paulo seems like this middle ground, it’s much better than any Indian
airport, but not as good as any in Europe or America (Yes, you can throw in a
jibe about Heathrow at this point).
The customs
and immigration formalities were done with pretty quickly and I was out of the
airport in less than half an hour. At this point I must mention that Brazilians
are a lot like Indians in terms of punctuality, never on time (and this isn’t
some generalization I am making based on one or two examples, it is an everyday
thing).
So, the
AIESEC guys were supposed to receive me were nowhere to be found when I got
out. And at that point of time, I knew nothing in Portuguese except the
greetings and less than 5% of their population speaks English (although that
percentage goes up when they are drunk, seriously). I wandered around aimlessly
trying to get some help, but it was useless. I though I was totally screwed.
Fortunately, the three (Andre, Fabi and Carol) that were supposed to come pick
me bumped into me as I was going around looking for a pay phone. After the
usual rounds of greetings and apologies later, we finally headed to Campinas.
Generally,
it takes about an hour and a half to get to Campinas by car, but we lost our way and it
took us about three. But, since I slept through most of the drive, I really
didn’t care. The ordeal was over, finally.
Next time: Ok so I said that I would write about
it in this post, but this one is already too long. So next time, the first days
in Brazil,
the job and Caipirinha. |
