After a series of interviews, conference calls and online tests, I finally get my Job offer letter and my scanned Visa copy by e-mail.
Must say I was on the top of the world when I saw the subject line of the mail say ‘Offer Letter’.
But eeks! … when I opened the attachments it was all in Arabic! I assumed the pay must be as per the agreement. But for my satisfaction I took the calculator and converted the figure into 12 (we are aware of only one standard conversion rate for the Dirham). So after all the halla gulla of leaving the country, I said goodbye to all at home and finally boarded the flight from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi via Muscat.
I had heard a lot about Muscat from my uncles and aunties. (Every Mangalorean family has some uncle working in Muscat) I thought a transit journey would get me a detour of Muscat. After the flight attendants announcement that “We will be shortly landing at Muscat” people woke up and made sure all the freebies and free stuff given by the airline are in their bags.
I took a peak outside to see what Muscat looked like and saw nothing but mountains, mountains and more mountains! I was feeling too lazy to fasten the seat belt and just pretended that it was around me.
The plane touched ground in Muscat (The SEEB International Airport). The name somewhat sounds like ‘Seepz’ in Mumbai where I worked previously.
Anyways, the flight lands to give company to another Oman Air bird standing lonely at the airport.
The airport looked deserted and this scared me.
My connecting flight to Abu Dhabi was in 30 minutes and so I thought that the flight would be stationed somewhere at one corner of the airport. Thus I started hurrying and was looking for the instructions on the Airport television set.
“Gate 9 for the Abu Dhabi,” it said and I was desperately looking for Gate 9. I finally found it and made myself comfortable at the gate. But hey! Wait a minute! I could see the flight in which I landed from Mumbai. After 10 minutes they announced "The flight for Abu Dhabi is ready for Boarding, kindly keep your boarding cards ready." I searched in my bag and dug out the boarding card in the middle of some Tiffin boxes packed by mom.
When the gate opened they took us towards the same flight from the back door. I began wondering what trouble was in store for me. They made us get down from the front door and get us back inside in another 10 minutes from the back door. Sounds funny isn’t it.
After almost an hours journey we land at Abu Dhabi. Ah, this airport looks like an airport I said to myself – some flights here and there. Outside the plane, a beautiful lady was standing with a signboard that spelt my name. I told her "that's me". She said "Assalamu- Alaikum", I replied "Thank You."
She gave me a weird look. I did not know that we are supposed to reply "Salaam" to the greeting. Anyways she assisted me with all the formalities and left me outside the airport and got me in a taxi.
After a sad farewell and a 25-minute drive, I reached my hotel. My apartment was on the 13th floor and offered a beautiful view of the sea. The room service personnel helped me with the luggage inside the apartment. Once done, he waited near the door. I saw him and wondered as to why he is waiting. Then I realized he wanted a tip.
I search my pockets and came out with some coins, calling cards, boarding cards and lots of Indian 10 rupee notes. The hotel boy was a Philippines (there are a lot of Philippines public into the hospitality industry here in Abu Dhabi). Looking at one 50 Rupee note, he said.
"Indian money is good". I said to myself “what the heck, here you go – I hope you don't come and hit me when you convert that into dirham."
After settling down with the luggage I thought of having a bath to get fresh. The bathroom was elegant and had a tub. I was not used to tubs as buckets were the order so far. Trying to figure out some way for almost 2 hours I finally got into it.
Well all is well that ends well! After 20 minutes inside the tub and almost 10 liters of water outside the tub spilled out by me, I got fresh.
Dragged my way out to the living room and put on the TV. Since it was a new hotel, all the channels were Arabic. For almost 2 hours, I was busy trying to find a channel in the language that I could understand. I settled down with some ‘panpole’ (pancakes) and chicken curry that mom had made and said, Good Night!
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