This is the duration after which I was returning home after i left it in Jan2006.
The much awaited day arrived on 20th April 2007. It was precisely after 1.25 years and 0.75 months (three weeks) that I was headed "home". But the happiness and anxiety could be seen from weeks before. First sign came when my deadline of arranging for my return was accepted in Feb 07. I told my manager that I want to return home at all cost by end of May 07; even if I had to return by paying for tickets out of my pocket and taking "forced" sick leave.
There were a few complications, but what mattered most was getting my replacement - something that was hard to find at that stage. One can say I got lucky; I got news within a month (by mid March) that my replacement has been found and would reach Chicago by April 8. I knew that my days in Chicago were numbered. However until then I had spread news that I am returning home by May end, which is of course true even now!! :D And it was really difficult to hide the news.
I had decided I am not going to tell anyone my actual date of arrival in India; but I had to inform a few people, just in case I dont ever land!! - dont ever manage to reach India! (Brilliant people like me have lots of enemies you see :P) I told my college time friend and another net friend in Bangalore.
To cut the story short; until my return only a handful of people knew, mostly in US only, with instruction to not to tell anyone else. My replacement is a girl, pretty and good looking; I was wondering if I should change me decision about returning home ;)
The two weeks of knowledge transfer of the application handling were quite busy ones, for no other reasons but that the application was too big to be covered in short time and I had given a lot of time :D I must admit she grasped things well and learnt fast, but of course the elements and qualities required to tackle the job would be gained only by experience.
Coming back to the topic, I hardly got any time to pack those two weeks, so it all boiled down to Friday night, the night before I was traveling, to pack up (or dump) my stuff in the bags. I had decided to take three check-in pieces of bag (of course i had to pay extra, but then i was winding up completely). My seat was booked in Royal Dutch Airlines and the fares and excess luggage charges were royal too !! :
The journey between my house in Chicago to my seat in the plane was an ordeal. When I sat in the plane I felt as if I reached to top of the Everest. I got a window seat for the near 8 hours long first half of the flight. Next to me was an East Asian girl, busy studying travel book to an African country - Uganda. Fortunately she found good enough company in the Canadian sitting on the other side, hence I could get the much needed sleep for the rest of the flight.
I must add here that the KLM airhostess were beautiful, almost everyone were 6 feet tall Dutch beauties :)
As the flight was heading West I got to see my first ever Sunset from aboard a flight. It was a flight to cherish, for, within around 5 hours, just before landing at Amsterdam I got see my first ever Sunrise aboard a flight :) Apart from the sunrise and sunset, I slept for the most part of the flight.
At Amsterdam, I had a 2 hours break before the next flight was to be boarded. I had nothing to do but to sit for one hour in the lounge in front of the boarding gate and wait for the flight. I listened to music and had a look at my would-be co-fliers; there was one face that caught my gaze. We boarded the flight and I was praying that she be seated somewhere next to me. My seat was 12-J - a window seat and next to me was another businessman!! Alas!! This flight too was going to be uneventful. But then I did not miss her too much :) for this flight too was an experience in its own. The flight passed over the snow covered Alps, Mediterranean sea and the deserts of West Asia, stretches of Hindkush mountains, over my on native land of Kutchh and then the Western coast if the Indian Peninsula.
It was 9:30 as the plane reached the Mumbai skies, and then came the most uninteresting part of the flight. The plane kept hovering over the Maharashtra skies for another half an hour and even after it landed it was waiting near runway waiting for a gate. I thought that was all for me for the day, as the plane touch the alighting gate. But no! I got out of gate 5 and had to walk all the way to gate 11 where the immigration counters were present and then again almost the same distance until the gate. As i was passing the customs, I was held up (for having an extra bag). I was adamant I am not going to pay anything to the customs (I had no dutiable stuff). I let the office check my bags in which he didn’t find anything "worth" and he let me go in 10 mins. I came out of airport to book the prepaid taxi. I was anxious to reach home ASAP. But it was already midnight by the time I was out of the airport.
The Mumbai airport has changed a lot and it looked better than before. Even the queues at immigration counter weren’t long and things went smoothly after alighting.
The taxi (or cab :) ) stopped in front of my home at 12:15 sharp. Since my apartment building doesn’t have a lift, I had to carry the three 50 pounds or 23 KG bags all the way up to two flights of stairs, and then there was a 25 pound rucksack and a 25 pound laptop bag. With all my luggage in front of the door of my home, i rang the doorbell to wake up my sleeping parents.
My mom who was hardly expecting me, thought there is some pizza delivery boy ringing the wrong doorbell yet once again; and then when she opened the door only after hearing my voice for the third time ("please open the door"), she had the best surprise of her life so far. Even my dad was in such a pleasant shock, we continued talking and talking for another 3 hours, before retiring for the second time that night.
I love giving surprises, but I am careful too. I had informed one cousin of mine with strong instructions to not to tell anyone about it and he proved to be a good friend to keep mum for over 36 hours about my return, not even to his mom who happens to be favourite of my aunts.
Now I await the next phase of my life; looking forward to a change that should change my life completely.
Thanks for reading my story. Please do leave your remarks and comments.
Good luck to one and all.
For your information, the face that I had seen at the Amsterdam airport was traveled in 12A (the other window of same row) and we had a little chat while we were waiting for our baggages :)
