The sky over DHARAVI is my own ...

It was in August 1999, I went to St. Petersburg (Leningrad) in Russia on a business trip. My itinerary was planned by an agency under United Nations. I was to travel from Mumbai to St. Petersburg via Paris and return back to Mumbai via Frankfurt. The PR section of my department got my VISA endorsed from the Russian Consulate in Mumbai.

The onward journey by Air France was very comfortable except for few hours transit at Charles de' Gaule airport.

After finishing my assignment  in St. Petersburg, I boarded in to Lufthansa. The scheduled landing at Frankfurt was at about 7:30 AM and the connecting Delta Airlines flight to Mumbai at about 11:00 AM.

On board Lufthansa's , I was very happy since first time in my life I was occupying a seat in the executive class, (thanx to non availability of seat in economy, the sponsoring organization had no option but to book in a higher class).

The plane landed at Frankfurt on time. The passengers were getting out of plane, My dream to touch the fatherland was about to become true.

Suddenly I was surprised by seeing the passport control officer along with security guards, checking the passports of all the passengers alighting from the plane. When my turn came, I was stopperd. They told, in not a very pleasant english, that I did not posess a VISA to touch the fatherland. When I told that I had only to catch the connecting flight back to Mumbai at the international airport so I did not see any logic for a VISA. I am not stepping (or even peeping) out of the international airport boundary. The officer did not respond.  One more fellow  passanger, a Srilankan, was stopped but after few minutes allowed to go as he was a seaman.

I was taken into a jeep by the security guards and then after about a 15 minutes drive to a building and then via multi-floor staircases to a room which was empty. The security officer asked  me to sit there. After this the officer left the room. It was around 8.00AM.

For one hour no body, not even a voice of any murmur, entered in to the room. The image of sort of a concentration camp came to my mind. Probably you can feel about my mentatl condition at that time. At about 9.00 AM two security officers brought 3 Iraqi passangers to the same room and left them there. My heart started beating very fast.

At 9:45 AM the security officer who brought me to the room came back and in a, very difficult to understand, voice asked me, If I could show him a proof that I was really on a UN's mission. Fortunately I had an invitation letter from the host's of the meeting, which I handed over to him. The gentleman then asked me a sum of 34 Marks, but I had only USD. I gave him 20 or 30 USD. He took my passport and returned after about 15 minutes with a TRnasit VISA duly endorsed on my passport.

Then a surprise, He saluted me and said very polite and good words for my co-operation. He took me in his jeep, to the terminal where my plane was to take off. He guided me right upto the checkin counter. More natably he returned  few coins (Marks), the difference in the money that I paid him in dollars and the actual VISA fees.

The Delta's  flight back home was on time. When It was circling over Mumbai, I peeped through the window and saw the DHARAVI area below. I felt extremely overjoyed. No sky in world is so beautiful and lively as the sky over DHARAVI for it is my own ...