I was woken up by the ring of my cell phone at 1 AM. I was quite shocked to see that it was my school friend who was calling me. I answered the call and she told me about her sisters who were to fly to the United States that night but failed to make it as they did not have a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) stamp and were waiting in the Indira Gandhi International airport, New Delhi. They were coming to Delhi for the first time and she asked me if I could go there and help them out. I was ready to go but the time at which she called was a little crazy. I was also new to Delhi but I was ready to go thinking of the two girls who were waiting in the airport in this bitter cold Delhi night. I was staying with my relative and I was a bit hesitant to ask him permission to leave from the house at this time as he had the onus of my well being. Soon I got a call from her parents, who were in the U.S. asking me to help them out in all possible ways. I could feel the tension and worry in their voices. Parents who are away in a different country and their kids being held up in the airport for such a thing, I could feel exactly what a parent will go through. I was totally unaware of all the formalities and procedures of a flight travel but I could just assure them my full efforts in getting them out of trouble and making them feel comfortable.
As soon as my clock struck 6 AM I woke up my uncle and explained to him the situation and left for the airport. By then I got some more calls from the two sisters and their parents. I used to see the airplanes flying very close to my apartment terrace which made me feel the airport is quite close, but I was mistaken. The airport was not that close and I had to travel for quite some time to get there. As soon as I got there I found the two sisters; their faces pale, tired and helpless. Their faces simply told me what they were going through all night. The first thing what struck me was how they would have spent their night without any winter wear. The nights in Delhi were really bitter. I could feel the biting cold even with layers of sweaters and blankets around me. I wondered how much they would have undergone that night. Or dint they feel the cold as they had more complex things running at the back of their minds? God knows.
We soon went to the airline’s office in the airport to get guidance on what we should do. They asked us to go to the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office and get the PIO stamping done. We soon set off to the FRRO office in a cab and on the way we picked up a guy who was their classmate’s elder brother. Soon we reached the office. They sent us to the Ministry of External Affairs’ office to get the registration number. After waiting in a long queue we got the number and by the time we reached the FRRO office the clock struck 1 PM. Lunch time! We had to wait till 2 PM for the staff to come and then they asked us to wait till 3. It was like the cold was not willing to spare the afternoon time even. The chilling atmosphere was making the condition worse. At 3 PM we asked the officials about the stamp and they said that they have not yet received the files from the Ministry of External Affairs and until then we had to be patient. It was a Friday and we were getting more and more tensed because we knew that if it was not for that day, then the wait would be till Monday. The two of them were getting irritated as they were to be with their parents and old friends by night if at all they had boarded the flight and now that they could not, they were here in the capital city waiting for the extremely long and time consuming government procedures to be completed.
Half an hour passed and still the officials gave the same reply when asked about the status. Soon the guy with us called his father and explained to him the issue. Luckily his father was a man in the political scene and had some great contacts in Delhi. He told he will get someone to help us out. In some time one of the sister and that guy went to the Ministry of External Affairs’ office to check if they had sent the files here. He had left his mobile here and I had to answer a call. To my shock it was a person who was at the helm of the administrative section of the Finance ministry who was talking to me. He told he will have a word with the people in the FRRO. Rest all what happened was magic!
The attitude of the FRRO officials changed. They called us and took our file and started working on it. They never even bothered to look at their watches. They all were busily doing things for us and in an hour the work was done. The clock showed 6 PM and I now knew what difference a call can make in a department.
Both the sisters were happy and after a real long time I saw a glow on their face. They smiled. We all smiled. We did not wait any longer. We got a cab to the airport. God did not spare us there too. The airlines people charged us extra money for letting us get into the next flight. We paid that and then the night’s fly to the United States was confirmed.
The trip the sisters will never forget, the day I will never forget!
