continued from here
We all knew within our hearts that we were being treated no less than dogs, in the most inhuman ways that could be. Infact, a Somalian guy came up to S and said that it was neither person's fault, but the fault of our skin color. Coming from Asian and African countries was considered as a crime here. Luckily for him, he was the next person to be called. An amazing kid, speaking six different languages including Arabic, English, Swahili, Somalian and others, he bid good bye to his Egyptian friends as he left the room.
With the grace of God, and to S's good fortune, he was next in line. The cop entered the room again with his passport and ticket. The cop didn’t say much, and just asked S to pick his luggage and follow him. Interestingly, they never gave S his luggage and he was pretty sure that it had found its way to the lost and found department of the airport (or may be the flea market of Moscow). He never ceased to find new problems for himself. But the important thing was that he was out of a big mess. As he left the room, he wished the rest of the people good luck and could only pray to God to help them as well. He didn’t have the courage to look at the agony in their eyes and he walked out of there as fast as he could.
It took about half an hour before he got his luggage and moved towards the green channel to face yet another problem. A Russian lady officer stood there, giving S another set of strange looks as he approached her. As S reached her, she spoke a few Russian words, only to find S confused as usual. After a lot of trying to understand each other, S found out that she wanted the customs card that was to be filled. The only thing S remembered about the customs card was when he asked for it on the flight to fill it up and the air hostess told him that it was not required. Great!!! S was in another mess. He tried explaining this to the officer, but she failed to understand (how typical!!!). Finally she gave up on him and luckily decided to ignore it, asking me to go ahead and get the hell out of there. Phew, S was finally out of the damn place after 23 hours of being held captive. What a relief!!!
As S walked outside, he looked at all the placards, expecting one of them to read either his name, or the name of his company. Not to his surprise, all the placards were in Russian. He tried to recollect the little Russian he had studied about three years back in college and tried to make sense of the words, thinking that the company representative was probably Russian. He also cross-checked it with the name written on his visa, which was in Russian too. He realized that the misfortune was not yet over. There were no placards with either his name or the company’s name written. The little processing that his brain could do, told him that he should contact the company again and ask them about the representative. The only problem now was that there were no public telephones on the airport. So S found this African guy and asked if he could use his cell phone. He refused saying that he didn’t have any balance left. So S offered him money in exchange and wallah…there he was making calls again, collecting telephone numbers of people he had never met, calling them, and giving descriptions of himself. Finally, a young gentleman from the company came to his rescue and got him out of there. During the ride, he asked S what had happened and after hearing S's story, told him that he made a mistake by telling the authorities that he was here to work. He said that Indians don’t have a very good reputation around the world as they emmigrate all over, wherever they get an opportunity, and hence S got caught up. Instead, S should have said that he was here for business meetings and would attend a couple of conferences etc. He made S realize that in today’s world honesty has no place.
At the end of the day, when S sits back and thinks about the whole thing, he feels that he has changed over a period of time. He realizes how patient he had become. Had he been in the same place 3-4 years back, he would have gone up to the cop and punched him in the face. Probably even a year ago, he would have at the least shouted his lungs out. But here he was, sitting peacefully with no worries. He was worried, and may be even nervous, but rather than getting upset and crying over the whole situation, he was thinking of ways of getting out of it. He was thinking of the positive side of life, not that there were many, but thoughts like may be he won't have to go to work in Siberia any more, did come to his mind. Life is all about learning and such experiences only make you stronger. You become more prepared for tougher situations in life. After all, unless we face the unpleasant situations in life, we would never be able to cherish the beauty of life and how much easier it is on a normal day.
S is sure that all the people close to him are shocked and worried about my state of mind after going through the so called hell in those 24 hours, and to them he says, YOUR BOY IS MUCH STRONGER THAN ALL THIS. IT WILL TAKE A LOT MORE TO BRING HIM DOWN TO HIS KNEES (unless it’s a gal, though in which case I think it should be the gal going down on the knees.... ahem...). HE’S STILL SMILING THE WAY HE ALWAYS DOES, AS IF NOTHING BIG HAD EVER HAPPENED.
His friends often ask him, “WHY ALWAYS YOU??” and his reply to them is that may be I’M THE CHOSEN ONE… THE ONE. Just kidding….
The entire Life of S series is a true story, with only the names changed and a few details left out. The story was originally written by my very dear friend S, and then edited and published on this blog by me. The story is in no way a reflection of Russia as a country and how things happen there (it could have happened with S any where). He has several such anecdotes up his sleeves, and hope fully we will see a few more on this blog.
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