Journey of a lifetime - my frantic race against time

One year back I undertook a journey of my lifetime, one with full of shocks as well as pleasant surprises, to Mexico. Even though the story is a year old now, its imprints are still afresh on my mind since it had left some lasting impressions behind. Today I somehow feel like sharing my experiences of that incredible journey once again even though I have partially written about it last year in weekly “Kashmir Life”.

As they say, “journeys help you discover your true inner self”. It was my third visit abroad but was not as smooth and hassle-free as my earlier two trips to Turkey and Australia but it helped me a great deal in having a glimpse of the resolute self inside me (no self-boasting intended). This time I was going to present a couple of my accepted research papers at the 12^th annual conference of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance that was scheduled to be held between October 30^th to November 2^nd, 2012 at Cancun, Mexico – the land of ancient Mayan civilization. Out of around 400 delegates I was one among the lucky six people who had been fully sponsored by the International Society for this trip purely on the basis of merit and quality of my research papers. I could never have afforded to miss that golden opportunity under any circumstances.
 

I commenced my journey from Srinagar and my first stop-over was at Delhi followed by Mumbai. A flight from Delhi was not available when I had booked my tickets. Upon reaching Mumbai while I was quickly rushing towards the immigration clearance section of the Chatrapati Shivaji Airport in order to catch my next flight to New York I got the huge shocker that all flights to New York had been cancelled owing to the threat of hurricane Sandy that was looming large over the East Coast of USA. The queue of affected passengers was horribly long and each passenger was to my great discomfort and annoyance consuming too much time at the counter.

While in the queue my fellow passengers were woefully narrating how this cancellation was going to wreck havoc to their travel and other domestic plans. Behind me in the queue was an Indian-American wife and in front of me an Indian-American husband. Husband in front of me was constantly being scolded by his wife from America on phone, probably for not listening to her or something else and that was leaving him in a very embarassing situation. On the other side Indian wife behind me was rebuking her husband on phone in Gujrati for something that I couldn't understand. Poor husbands were getting the bashing both in India and America and that was the only source of amusement for me at that very time. After a spine-breaking wait of over three hours in the queue I could make up to the airlines counter where I was offered either a rescheduled flight through an alternative sector or a full refund in case I opted to abandon my onward trip. But in spite of quite serious apprehensions of getting stranded somewhere in Europe or America, I chose to go by an alternative route because I didn’t want to return back home looking like a nincompoop without having fulfilled the basic aim of my sojourn.

I was reminded of an anonymous quote, “If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.” They offered me a route in which I had to change four planes between Mumbai to London to Houston to Mexico City to Cancun and my original journey of 21 hours was getting overstretched to more than 48 hours. Since an alternative sector was available, I quickly grabbed their offer and boarded my British Airways flight to London with words of Alex Noble reverberating in my mind, “Success is not a place at which one arrives but rather the spirit with which one undertakes and continues the journey." Flight attendants of British Airways flight were all middle-aged, obese, senior employees with little enthusiasm usually seen in the younger lot and on top of it there was no vegetarian food available to my utter disgust since I mostly avoid non-veg food during foreign trips. All they could offer me was a plate of stale, dark coloured, somewhat bitter noodles that I couldn't even taste properly and had to manage with some soft drinks and biscuits only.

Upon arriving at London Heathrow airport, it was pleasantly cold, slightly misty and drizzling. London Heathrow airport was awfully busy as usual and after we landed I could count at least seven planes hovering in air, lined up in the sky waiting for their turn to land. Before our landing we too had circled many times over London and in the process we could have a detailed glimpse of the beautiful London city from above. I rang up to my home to inform them about the changed schedule. They had heard about the cancellation of flights and were worried about my itinerary and safety. I assured them on both the counts and they took a sigh of relief even though continuous news about displacement of lakhs of inhabitants and cancellation of thousands of flights at East Coast of USA was making me increasingly nervous since my next stop was Houston, USA from where I had to fly to Mexico city. My sole target was to reach Cancun in time.

My transit through Houston was smooth and I reached Mexico City in time. However it took me some extra time to go through my immigration clearance at Mexico City airport because of the huge rush of passengers there in spite of the fact that I was lately given preference due to my connecting flight. I reported at the domestic ticket counter 45 minutes before my next connecting flight to Cancun. Travel agent shocked me there by saying that domestic check-in closes one hour before the actual flight and therefore I won’t be able to check myself in. I had to catch the air train and rush back to the International terminal to contact my airlines agency for the next flight. To my surprise in the entire hall of more than 20 ticket counters, not even a single counter was operational. On top of it no Adam or Eve around was able to speak or understand even a single word in English. By then I had already missed my last flight to Cancun and that had left me really distressed.



View of pristine Cancun beach from my hotel room balcony

After running helter-skelter for some time, out of great difficulty I could locate an official who was busy labeling some baggage, for narrating my ordeal and claiming my baggage. To my utter surprise, he quickly generated a printed ticket for me from his computer and told me to rush back to the domestic terminal for catching the next flight to Cancun scheduled at 10 pm. This time air train was very cruel on me since it was arriving to pick me up only after a gap of 15 minutes which I was not in a position to afford since it was already 9 pm and I had to check in immediately. I almost lost all hopes of making it to Cancun in time. Somehow I reached the domestic check-in counter just fifteen minutes before the flight and after some initial dilly dallying and refusal by the airlines staff that I resisted with some stiff arguments, they checked me in at the eleventh hour and I went rushing to board my sixth and last flight to Cancun.

I managed to board the flight just five minutes prior to its scheduled departure and the first thing I did on board was to ask for a glass of water which was offered to me quickly by a Mexican air hostess who was slightly bewildered to see me gasping for breath. However all hardships were not over for me yet. Upon reaching desolate Cancun airport in the middle of night, I received another blow when I was told that my baggage had not arrived and would be delivered next day at my hotel, J. W. Marriott. Consequently I had to spend the first day of the conference uneasily in my travel attire. However my room-mate Raul Rodriguez Ramos, a Mexican Pharmacovigilance student from Guadalajara was sweet enough to lend me his spare razor so that I could shave my beard off.

Early morning when I stepped out onto my hotel room balcony, the sight in front of me was incredibly amazing. Mesmerizing view of clean turquoise waters of Caribbean sea, tidy white sandy beaches and tall hotel buildings of Cancun standing in a row, was nothing short of some heavenly abode. All my travel miseries vanished in a jiffy and I found myself in an entirely different frame of mind. I found my belief in the saying that fruits of patience are always sweet growing stronger than ever. In fact fruits were much sweeter than sweet this time. All my travel torments had paid back so pleasantly. I had absolutely no regrets for taking all the trouble to reach that lovely place on the face of earth. Courteously my travel ordeal was briefly touched upon without naming me by the Chairman of the Conference, whom I had met at the breakfast, in his inaugural address. My return journey back home was as per schedule without any such hassles since the super storm Sandy had already gone past. What transpired during my four day long stay at Cancun is another story to tell, but of course a very refreshing and enjoyable one. It was the most memorable and cherishable confrence trip of my entire life. And yes my baggage was delivered next day at my hotel with complimentary lamination done.

- Dr Geer Mohammad Ishaq