24 hours ago I was sleeping (though not peacefully), 18 hours ago I was calling the embassy and the travel agent, 16 hours ago I got a call from the embassy asking me to collect my visa in person from them, 14 hours ago I was paying for my ticket, less than 12 hours ago I was shopping, 10 hours ago I was packing, less than 6 hours ago I finalized everything and went to sleep and there I was sitting in a car going towards the Shamshabad International Airport. It was hard to believe what was happening and harder still to suppress my excitement. Forget being Icy. This was it, the moment to cherish. Was this true or was this a dream? Was this really happening? Had I done everything correctly? Was everything right? Because even at this stage there was no margin for error. One tiny mistake and everything would be gone as abruptly as it had happened. But after going though so much and having dragged it this far, there could not be any more mistakes (??).
Once again, my family, friends and their wishes and prayers coupled with my luck and fate had done wonders for me. I had not even had the time to call everyone and tell them what had happened because I did not have enough time to even pack properly. Everything happened in the nick of time and at the last possible moment. But what mattered was that they HAD happened. It no longer mattered what tension I had to go through, nor the effort that went into it. It no longer bothered me how I packed or if I had forgotten anything, all that mattered was that I was going to see Kimi, I was going to see formula 1 and I was going out of the country, something that I had thought impossible.
I was making calls left, right and centre and telling everyone what had happened, though briefly. Even though I did it till the last moment, even from Mumbai, I was unable to call everyone but I had asked people to pass on the message. It was a shock for some of them as it had happened unexpectedly. Others thought I was playing a bad joke waking them up so early in the morning. Some might have even took it for a dream. But it was real and happening!!. For those who knew it all along, it was a relief I guess. They felt happy for me and they knew it would be gross injustice if I wasn’t given a visa (and in time). I knew I left it a little too late but still I didn’t deserve to be rejected.
As I waited outside the airport with my parents, I could not help thinking of all the things that my Family had given me. They never said no to what I wanted and they never imposed themselves on me. They always gave me my freedom, my own space. They always let me do what I liked and they never blamed me for the consequences or took credit for the good. They were always there to support me and let me make my decisions and chose my paths. They would only tell me the plusses and negatives of a path before I chose it and once I was on it, no matter how radical my paths were or what outsiders thought, it never really bothered them as long as I liked what I was doing.
The airport was huge and much better than Begumpet (bound to be!!). It’s an airy, glass structure with apparent security drawbacks and having much larger capacity than what Hyderabad was offering to the airlines. Nonetheless, an iconic airport would definitely boost Hyderabad’s image and help it to cope with the ever increasing air traffic (until the global crisis i.e.,). A good airport always helps.
My luggage was underweight and everyone around me was the opposite. The check in counter clerk was absolutely surprised and excited about it (don’t know why). Hello!! Calm down dude, that’s all I could manage to pack. He wanted to know if I was going on an office trip but I told him I was going to visit my brother. Come to think of it now he was much better and co-operative than his counterpart in Heathrow. He gave me the best seat possible for the international leg and I thank him for that (you don’t get what u ask or expect generally)!!!
8 o clock and the Jet airways flight to Mumbai was ready to leave. It had arrived late and was going to be late by half an hour. But one funny thing that caught my eye from the you-can-see-everything waiting lounge was our runway. Its strange and out of my reach to understand why the runway is inclined. Planes have to land on a downward slope. I happen to mention it to some people and it always made us laugh to imagine a pilot and the plane in a telugu movie comedy scene dropping down on landing and running down the incline before taking off. You might say it helps pick up speed but that’s senseless. These things have jet engines. They don’t need inclines!!!
Some time later, I was in Mumbai with my friend from Powai (Oxford returned :-P) waiting to meet me there. It was drizzling when we landed but it was raining like hell by the time I got into the shuttle bus. From that moment on, it rained virtually everywhere I went. It was very heavy with the runway getting flooded but that wouldn’t bother me as long as my plane was on time. Changing terminals was boring (despite me being on the phone with my friends) and unorganized due to unscheduled delays but as soon as I saw Eddy’s (I hope that u have read enough to know that it’s a name changed) familiar face, it was like Alex finding a living human in Madagascar (hypothetically). I had thought I’d have a lot of time to wait in Mumbai but I was wrong. The delays had left me with only 15 minutes to talk to my friend and crib on how dirty the place was. I had to go into immigration and I bade him good bye. After going smoothly through everything, I was left with 1.5 hour to wait for my flight. Luckily though, I had to wait only for about half an hour before boarding. I was more than happy to spend it talking to my parents, brother and continuing my conversation by sms with my very special friend back home. I took on record the last minute wish (gift) lists from everyone and got on board. It was finally the moment of truth and after all of this, there could be just one final hurdle between me and the British GP under normal circumstances – the immigration clerk in Heathrow. Unless he/she kicked me out of his country, there was no one to stop me from meeting Kimi (assuming everything else like the technical details of the plane were all normal!!) with the exception of God. But He made all this happen and I had a gut feeling that he wouldn’t be that insensitive to make a miracle happen first and then kill me :-P. After all, Gods are good and I was not in a Norton N-22(Source: Airframe)(Though Boeing is synonymous to Norton to me)!!. So in all probability, I was in safe hands. (P.S You’d realize the depth of the above sentences if you watch Air Crash Investigation on NGC. P.S continued: You wouldn’t want to board flights once you start watching it…it’s a deathtrap up there...hahahaha….Can’t help if u didn’t get the joke..)
Here we go then to meet the ICEMAN!!
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