It isn’t exactly a pleasant feeling to be on your own when travelling solo for the first. It was my first flight out of India but it turned out to be an experience of a lifetime.
I checked everything twice before packing it. My sleep was fretful. How was I going to cope? What was the new place going to be like? A thousand thoughts came to me.
“Good evening and welcome to Flight SG 705 to Dubai. We hope you have a pleasant flight with us,” a woman announced in a Cockney British accent.
I took a final look at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi as the plane took off. As we gained altitude, my anxieties began to vanish. On the other end of my three-hour plus flight, a brand new world awaited.
I grabbed a copy of Gulf News in the flight. The headline read: “Expo 2020 Dubai: Emirates unveils new campaign with Chris Hemsworth."
A picture of Hemsworth in a sharp suit stood out for me. Dubai was rolling out the red carpet to invite the world to Expo 2020, and it was only fitting that one of the world’s most popular celebrities led the way. I don’t know why it excited me then but I couldn’t get the image of “The Thor” out of my mind.
Two episodes of Money Heist — a popular Spanish crime drama — later, I gazed out into the clouds. On the ground a faint outline of lights came along. Soon we were hovering over the city of lights.
A new experience
Dubai International Airport was a new experience for me. I walked to an Arab guy in the immigration, a big man, who looked at me and spoke in Arabic, perhaps mistaking me for an Arab. May be it was my appearance. I told him I don’t know Arabic. He was courteous and switched to English.
I handed the big man my passport. He looked at it, studied my face and then the picture in the passport. He flipped through the pages looking for any stamps but found none.
“Is this a new passport?” he politely asked. “No, the passport is old but the trip to a foreign land is my first. He gave me an amused look, stamped the passport and handed it back to me.
I kept a straight face, but inside my mind, there was a drum roll. It was like I had seen this scene in a dozen movies.
During the one hour at Dubai International Airport, I got my first experience with money exchange. In a matter of few hours, I had switched into calculating my money in dirhams.
Looking around, I could see the price tags of things in dirhams. With a wonder in my eyes, I crossed the gate, pulling my luggage. An image of Hemsworth seemed to smile at me from a smart hoarding at the airport. I smiled back. Thor, the Norse prince, seemed to be welcoming me.
Soon I was out of the airport and into an ‘experience’ — that can only be described as a cross between dream and delight. I work here now and it has been several weeks.
Dubai — like for so many others — has begun to grow on me.
Asim Shah is a Dubai-based professional
