It was the October of 2008, and my brother and I were waiting for
our flight to New York. It wasn’t the first time I was flying by plane but it was
the first time I was flying alone with a younger sibling who was only thirteen
years old. I was 17 years and 350 day old myself and I was glad to be leaving
the country where I had survived a bomb attack, a murder attempt, a horrible car
accident, an accidental poison consumption and a devastating earthquake that
claimed more than 80000 lives. I somehow felt that leaving Pakistan would be
the best thing that could ever happened to me and that the land of opportunity
was waiting with open arms.
As soon as the announcement was made for our flight, we were the first
to reach the gates and I was hoping that things would run smoothly from now
onwards. I was soon to be proven wrong. The passengers were advised to make
two lines by the Shift manager of the Etihad Airways and these lines consisted
of the passengers traveling alone and the ones who were traveling with their
family. We chose to remain in the family line as I believed we qualified to be a
family. A security person objected to us brothers standing in the family line and
asked us very rudely to move towards the singles line, which by now had at least
a 100 passengers on it. I refused and asked for the reason behind his objection.
He raised his voice, something that my parents had never done with us and gave
me his definition of the word “family”, which according to his diction should
always include a female or an infant child. I objected again, I wasn’t going to
move because I felt he was abusing his power and I was quite straight forward
about it. The guard stopped the lines from proceeding. I was being told by other
passengers to comply. They said I was creating an issue on an international
terminal and that such act was bringing shame to their beloved nation of
Pakistan. I was suddenly being burdened by the guilt of a nation. It was because
of all these people that I gave in to his demand and moved right at the end of
single passengers line. I was outraged. I was literally praying that terrorists
attacked the Jinnah airport after our flight had left and that this particular security
personnel would either be shot a hundred times or blown into thousand pieces. I
could hardly control the anger from showing. I was burring from within.
According to my brother I had turned red and he could feel my rage coming out
as flames. My rite of passage had begun and I was finally beginning to realize it.
As we entered the Etihad airline, we were welcomed by two
air hostess who were formally dressed in gray. One of them directed me towards
the middle of the plane. I was nerves and confused plus still frustrated about what
I had been through. The fear of traveling without a parent was haunting me. I
wasn’t ready for this journey. I felt I was being forced to grow up without my
consent. As we were walking towards our seats, I could see the neatness but I
couldn’t feel it. It smelled like someone had vomited their stomach out. Even
worse my brother thought it smelled like dead bodies. We sat next to an old
weird looking Zoroastrian lady who starting telling me that I should forgive that
security personal even before I sat next to her. She went on say that I should
understand how people react to things because you never know what pain they are
going through. She helped me cool off my temper, and challenged me to think
otherwise. Something that would stay with me all the way till John Fitzgerald
Kennedy International Airport.
After three hours of flying, the plane landed in Abu Dhabi International
Airport the capital city of the United Arab Emirates which looked more like a
castle made out of mirrors. I somehow felt I was inside bees nest as the walls
appeared to be made out of gold. Everything I saw was beautiful. The marble work
was amazing. It was so beautiful that I wasn’t believing my own
eyes, I thought I was hallucinating. After some site seeing we ran to catch our
transfer plane to New York. As we were running towards the gates to catch our
plane which was 4 hours behind schedule, two guys in army uniforms stopped us
and started Interrogating us. One of them was an old and experienced, officer the
other was maybe a newbie. The old officer asked us where we were from. I told
him that we were traveling from Karachi and our destination was New York. The
old guy told his colleague that in a situation like this, when a person is traveling
from South Asia as we were, they should always ask for their tickets and legal
documentation. As he was explaining these complex double standard systems of
the security department of all the airports around the world in a language that I
perfectly understood, I took out our immigration papers and put them in his hands
without him actually asking me about them directly. Out of embarrassment I believe
he let us proceed without any further questions.
After waiting those 4 hours, the flight finally took off from Abu Dhabi
towards John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport in New York. It took another
13 hours for it to reach the United States and I couldn’t wait to feel some land
underneath my feet. I had a sense of relief and safety coming down the plane
which was soon gone after we stood two-hours in the lines to pass the emigration.
There were like a thousand people in that line. The terminal we were in was so ugly
that I had a feeling that we had mistakenly taken a wrong plane, and that we
had somehow entered Bangladesh. I felt like a sixty year old man because I was
very tired. The first thing I did after clearing our first hurdle was to get our
Luggage, which was be a stupid mistake. I had no idea that we had to clear a last
immigration procedure where these custom officers would go through our papers.
One of those officers would give me a lecture that I would never forget.
He kept on telling me how stupid I was to commit such a stupid mistake and I kept
blaming them for not having signs to guide people like me who had been through a
lot to get here. He was very stubborn and would not listen to me. He told me that
we would be the last people to leave the airport, and I replied saying no problem.
As soon as this gentlemen went for his break, his colleague called me up and
cleared us to leave the airport. He also went on to apologize saying they were
having a bad day. I smiled at him and left. I was relieved. My nightmare was over.
This journey had taught me the world. I had learned from people
who were aliens to me. As much as I was regretting this experience, I was aware
it had somewhere within me created a new me, a better me. Someone who was
more responsible and cautious about the practical world. This journey would be my
“my rite of Passage”, a day where I believe I grew up.www.worst-day-of-my-life/xulfi-soomroblogspot.com
