Ajab Desh Ajab Niyam...

20 Oct 2005... I was supposed to return to India from Saudi Arabia. Seat Booking confirm-reconfirm zale hote. Sakali 9 00 chi flight. Savayee pramane mi sakali (ki bhalyaa pahate!!!) savva saha la Jeddah airport var hajar hoto. Arthaat airport paryant cha pravaas pan as usual smooth navhata. Rastyaat ek don thikaani nehami pramane bags ughadun dakhavavyaa lagalyaa hotyaa. Hyaa tight security cha parinaam mhanoon Aajkaal mi sudhaarlo aahe. Airport madhye ghuse paryant bag la kulup lavatach nahi :-)

Boarding pass ghetala....luggage submit kele... avadhe sopaskaar urakalyaavar mi Immigration counter var gelo. I gave him the documents & passport. To my surprice he said you can not leave country at this moment. Your visa is expired. First get it extended and then you can leave the country.

I was 101% sure that I was well within my visa expiry. I was leaving after 4 months whereas my visa was for 6 months. So I showed him the slip where it said validity 6 months and then showed him the stamp on passport for date of entering the country.
As a response that guy pointed to some Arabic script on the slip and said as per this your visa is expired. Arthaat haa sarvaa prakaar thoda modakyaa todakyaa english madhye aani thoda sign language madhye challa hota.

I met his boss. Thankfully his boss was ok with English. He looked at the record on his monitor. Saw the name of the sponsor and then his way of talking changed (tase aamhi mothyaa lokaanche pahune...) he just said there is something wrong with your visa stamping. Just contact the officers from National Commercial Bank and they will take care of it after which you can leave.

I asked if there was some way out... so he went to his boss with me who again was “English Maafi” (don’t know english) kind of person. So the final outcome was that i can not leave the country today.

As a last resort I called my friend from bank Naveen who had a good experience of staying in Saudi Arabia, and asked for his advice. He told that just get luggage out and come back. “Wahaan pe kuchh nahi hone wala.”

So I asked the officer what I need to do now to cancel the ticket and get luggage back. He gave enough instructions about where to go and what to do and I was able to get through all that stuff. I got luggage back after flight departure and was back to hotel. In between i had some hard time explaining this scenario back home.

I had a word with bank project manager. He said check out for flight bookings after Saturday. The rules here keep on changing and we will get this matter cleared on Saturday and then u leave. This was ok. But today on 21st Oct I have a bigger problem in front of me.

All the economy class reservations are full till Nov. 10.... Yesterday was last available reservation. Now I have 3 options left. Wait till Nov. 10 and then go back..... Or get ticket upgraded to First class.... Or try for ticket from some other airlines.

First option is virtually ruled out because I desperately want to be home before 28th Oct. The second and third option can be tried. But here again the second option will require that i pay the diff. of fare from my pocket since I m not entitled for first class travel as per company rules. Getting seat with another airline was also a very faint possibility because this is month of Ramadan and a lot of people are going back to India on vacation because the last week of Ramadan is a week long holiday.

Now i must wait till Saturday because Thursday and Friday are holidays here. And check out of latest available reservation after the visa matter is cleared, prepared to shell out some extra money for first class seat.

But somehow when I look back at yesterday’s incidents...it makes me believe there is a good reason behind everything that happens. It was good that this thing happened on 20th... now I have 7-8 days to fall back. If this was on 25 or 26 then there were high chances that i would have missed Diwali because by then the Ramadan holidays would have started. Also now i know the procedure of canceling the ticket after getting boarding pass and procedures taking the luggage out of the cargo bay. And most of all, i would never have thought of traveling by first class (at least in immediate future) if not for this situation

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward
-- Vernon Law

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
--Aldus Huxley