I could locate few cities below me. It was dark everywhere and the density of street lights were the indicators of how big a city is. Guessing the cities was fun but there was a little anxiety. I don't know if it was of leaving my homeland, my family or travelling to an unknown territory or accepting a new work responsibility. This was my first trip out of my country, India.
I was an Infosys employee and was working on a project with British Telecom. Our project team was located in Belfast, UK and Pune, India. I was working from Pune for 7-8 months now. I missed a prior chance to fly to UK as my visa was delayed. Even this time, the story was exciting. I was expected to fly on Jan 5, 2008. My manager had committed to the client about my arrival at onsite. However, I didn't receive my passport with stamped visa. As a result, I was supposed to travel the same day the visa arrives. Unfortunately, visas arrive to office only after 4pm. So it was routine to book a flight everyday in the morning and cancel in after 4 pm. Finally, my visa arrived on 10th of Jan and I left for Mumbai at 5pm after collecting my visa. I had also booked a cab beforehand. Sneha accompanied me with her dampened eyes. After crossing the Mumbai traffic, I reached my home late and was required to leave my house in half an hour or so. A weekend prior to that, I had packed my bags and been giving instructions to my parents for the whole week about the additions to be made. In a hurry, we all left for the airport and reached their in time. But the whole evening was so chaotic. The grief of leaving behind the loved ones and the anxiety to make it to the airport clashed time and again over that evening. With some uneasy feeling, I entered airport and boarded the British Airways(BA) flight. Now, you know the reason for that anxiety while guessing the cities.
I was enjoying the BA service. My flight was destined to Heathrow airport, London. From there, I had a connecting flight to Belfast. I could feel a different earth when I first peeped out of my window in Belfast. Not so tall building, beautiful landscapes and straight roads were catching my attention. My flight landed and I was eager to breathe that air. It was 9:30 in the morning. As soon as I stepped out of the flight, I realized for the first time that ACs can be used to warm your body. There was a nice cold breeze. It felt like I was in some hill station in India. I saw some accumulated snow on the airport and then my hands started freezing, not to mention the frozen state of my mind. After clearing all the security and claiming my luggage, I headed towards office. After a brief chat with my onsite project members, I came to my new house.
My new house was a 2 BHK well furnished apt in heart of the city. My new roommates were Jeemish and Sumeet. I was sharing room with Jeemish. Both of them were very friendly to me as I was new to the place. This was not the first time I was staying with friends. I had been sharing room with friends back in Pune. But we did not use to cook at home. So some things like buying shared groceries, cooking everyday at home were new for me. I gelled well with my new roommates and made good friends with them. I started enjoying bachelor's life.
Meanwhile, I started work from the next day. I was given a desk with phone and a laptop for work. I started understanding the new procedures to be followed at new office. Met new project members from other modules which I had only heard of before this. It was not a major shift of responsibilities taking into consideration the work. I was mostly performing the same activities that I was performing from offshore. Only difference this time was that I was not supposed to work out of office schedules :). So life was lot easy.
Only added responsibility was that we were supposed to provide a 24x7 support. Our team had to carry a cell phone all the time. I had to keep it with me alternate weeks. But it rang once in a blue moon. My office timing was 9 to 5. I came in at 9:30 and sometimes 10. I dont remember a day where I was forced to stay back after 5pm barring a few exceptions. My only motivation to stop back in office after 5 pm was to call my loved one or loved one. I could directly call Infy office in Pune from my extension. This was the service I used the most while my stay in British Telecom(BT). I had many friends who were in Infy, Pune but I missed Sneha the most. We used to talk for long hours because I knew even she was feeling the pinch. The long distance separating us at that time only helped in making us realize that nothing can part us apart.
I spent rest of my day in my apt. I used to get up in the morning to chat with my mom. The ease with which she used to operate home PC was truly amazing. Few months back, I had to explain her everytime I said click that it always meant left click unless specified otherwise. But her will to be in touch with me plateaued all the huge mountains between us. She would come online and wait eagerly to chat with me. I also could not feel fine unless I saw her online.
Other thing that I did religiously these 3 months was watching movies. Jeemish was my partner in this, and we both used to download 5-6 movies each at a time. We could not get sleep if we had not consumed enough media, be it sitcoms, movies or any other damn videos. As the days of my return were nearing, we were pressurized more and more to watch all the movies that we had downloaded.
Weekends were a bit boring if there was no outing planned. Planning an outing was not a piece of cake. I thought the main reason was the climatic conditions. It used to be freezing cold outside. Sunshine was just to make mockery of your senses. You won't dare to get out in the afternoon without your jacket or a sweater. Nights were chilly and meant to be at home. It also snowed couple of times during my stay at Belfast. Moreover most of my project members had been to nearby places and showed no enthusiasm to go again in this weather.
Sheetal was entusiastic to go out as she had also not seen most of those places. She was supposed to return to India and thus wanted to visit some of the places around. So we both planned trips and asked others. We always found a group of 4-5. Our trip to Castlerock was very eventful. Apart from that we went to Stormont Parliament and Exploris Aquarium which were simply superb. If we could not go far, we would atleast go around the small town, she knew few places and few places were still to be discovered.
There was also a long weekend during my stay in UK and people generally used to plan something good for long weekends. This time they had planned for a trip to Paris. But, we had to apply for schengen visa to go to Paris. For that I had to wait atleast a month after coming to UK to get my first salary slip. My friends helped me in getting my document work done and as soon as I was ready, we sent my application which was accepted in the first attempt. And so we were ready. Some of the guys had to cancel their plans mid-way. Finally we were 6 of us who went to Paris. It was one of the great experiences I had in my life, not to mention The Wonder - Eiffel Tower. All other places that we visited were simply amazing and this turned out to be my first pleasure trip out of India. This was also a special one because it was my first pleasure trip without my parents. I completely missed them but I could also sense a feeling of responsibility and independence.
Days passed and my stay at UK was coming to an end. It was only a week after I returned from Paris. I flew back to India on 28th of March. I was excited to meet my friends and family (Sneha included here, ;)). That is the reason why I was not missing my lovely trip at Belfast. But when I look back to those three months, I should affirm that I thoroughly enjoyed my stay. This was my smallest stay at any place but it will always remain in my memories and thoughts. I would like to go back and stay their for some more time, but this time accompanied with my loved ones.
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