June 25th, 2014
On June 6th, exactly one month after my acquittal
I contacted my lawyers to start the ball rolling with regards to getting back
my passport from the court. Of course it
wasn’t as simple as just going to the courthouse and asking for it back. First an application had to be made by the
lawyers and I returned five days later to meet one of the junior lawyers, Dola,
in the courthouse. After about half an
hour of waiting around my passport was fished out of the small white cloth
evidence bag from a locked cabinet. I
was led into the judge’s chambers, my first time into the sacred room which was
nicely air conditioned and fairly spacious.
Judge D’Costa was undoing his tie as he stood by his desk. He seemed to be in a good mood and as he signed
the application to return my passport to my possession I told him thanks and to
take care. He responded “You take care,
and make sure not to get caught again!”
We exchanged smiles and I was on my way.
With a copy of my judgement in my backpack, I hopped on my
scooter and headed off to Panjim, the capital of Goa, to go to the Foreigner
Registration Office (FRO) to get my exit visa or papers in order to be able to
leave India. The FRO is in the inner
courtyard of an old Portuguese building which houses the main police station in
Panjim. After waiting outside for half
an hour I was instructed to walk through to an L-shaped room with half a dozen
desks. The first few were proper
workstations with employees pecking away with two fingers on old computer
keyboards while the others merely served as tables for monolithic stacks of
paper precariously piled on them. I
wondered whether the skeleton of a worker who was unable to find his way out might
be found behind one of the towering mountains of bureaucracy. Amazingly the man I spoke to was able to find
a folder containing my information amongst the mess in about ten minutes. I was also surprised that he pulled up my
record in a database on one terminal.
India is slowly pulling itself into the 21st century.
The guy then led me into the Foreign Registration Officer’s
room. The slightly overweight 50
something year old woman with glasses perched on the end of her nose sat at her
huge desk in the middle of the room.
Smaller stacks of paper surrounded her with a lectern in the middle of
her desk for the current issues she was reviewing. I was instructed to sit and she asked why I
was there. I was quite impressed with
her candour, efficiency, friendliness and non-judgmental attitude. She was easily one of the best administrators
that I had encountered in India. She
told me that I would have to call back in a week as they would have to check
with the police station where I was detained to confirm that they had no had no
qualms with me leaving India. Okay, this
part didn’t really make sense...once my case started in the court system wasn’t
it now out of the police’s hands? How
could it be that Sachin Navekar, the sub-inspector who fabricated the case and
kept me stuck in India for 3½ years, was once again in control and had the
power to retain me for longer if he wanted to?
The following week I received the go ahead to book a plane
ticket and then bring it into the FRO. I
made a reservation online and the next day, a Friday, rode a scooter back to Panjim
to give them a copy of the ticket. I was
in and out of the office in five minutes as they just took the printout of the
ticket and told me to return on Monday.
Why I couldn’t just email them the ticket and save the two hours of
scootering I don’t know...but again, this is India.
Monday arrived and I met the man dealing with my application
for the third and final time. He gave me
a document which would be my key to leaving this country. For some reason I figured it would be grant
me permission for me to leave however it was worded from the opposite point of
view; it stated that I must leave India before or on June 25th. Fine with me...at this point it was just
semantics. The guy then asked me if I
planned to return to India in the future.
He said that my passport would be flagged and that I could have problems
entering the country. “Why?” I asked.
“I was acquitted.” “Only because
the police messed up the case” he responded.
Too funny.
On my last day I finished packing and sorting out the items
I was leaving behind for friends who would be returning in three to four months
for the tourist season. That evening I
had dinner at 21 Coconuts with a French friend Isabelle. I had many meals at 21 Coconuts over the past
few years, especially during the monsoon season and so it felt fitting for it
to be the venue for my last dinner in Goa.
My flight was at 4:30am and it was from Goa to Doha, then on
to Amman and finally to Tel Aviv where I planned to stay for 12 days with
Naomi. She had come to see me four times
in India so it was definitely time to return the favour. I had never been to Israel before so I looked
forward to seeing her world and having a local show you around a new country is
always the best way to go.
But before that I would have the sad event of saying
good-bye to my four legged furry friends, especially Pester. He’s been such a loyal dog to me during my
last year in Goa. Many people asked if I
planned to take him with me but that just doesn’t make much sense to me. First off he’d have to go through a long
quarantine (a minimum of 6 months).
Secondly I’m still a bit of a vagabond right now and don’t have a steady
home and lastly, he’s a beach dog! He
loves it in Arambol and I’m guessing he’s about 7 years old and it would be unfair
to remove him from his home. He’s a big
boy and he’ll be just fine after I leave.
I did fatten him up for the monsoon.
When Naomi had left the previous September I went in the taxi with her
to the airport and as we drove down the main road in Arambol Pester ran as fast
as he could for as long as he could trying to keep up with us. Looking through the back window at him was
heartbreaking, even knowing that I’d be back in three hours. So I was hoping he wouldn’t do the same as I
left, this time not returning. I met
Arun, my regular taxi driver, on the main road and loaded up my bags. Pester, Sukhee and a few other dogs had
followed me but then they started barking and chasing other dogs on the main
road so my goodbye to Pester was a brief one which was probably a good
thing. Stay safe my doggie friends.
I arrived at the new terminal at the Dabolim airport more
than three hours before my flight (yes, I had been stuck in Goa long enough for
them to build an entirely new terminal!).
I was quite certain that I would have some hassles leaving so I wanted
to make sure that I had plenty of time.
Sure enough, just checking in the woman behind the counter looked for my
visa in my passport and when I offered my FRO document she called for a
manager. After just a few minutes they
checked me in and all was good for now but I knew that the main challenge would
be going through immigration.
As soon as I stepped up to the immigration official and he
saw my name in my passport he immediately called for a more senior official who
was standing nearby. My name must have
been on a watch list. The FRO had told
me that they would make sure that they contacted the airport before my flight to
make sure that I was allowed to leave, let’s see if they got it right. After a few minutes of looking at my passport
and talking to each other in Konkani (the local Goan language), I was
instructed to sit down on a row of chairs against the wall between the
immigration desks and the security check-in.
I quietly sat there reading my book for twenty minutes when a Russian
woman was instructed to come and sit down as well. I’m guessing she may have had some visa
issues. I ended up sitting there for more
than an hour and it was now only 45 minutes until my flight was due to take off
when I was finally called back to immigration.
It seems as though they’d made a few phone calls and I was given an exit
stamp in my passport and allowed to continue on. Whew, one more barrier passed.
The plane rumbled down the runway in the dark and I looked
around at the other passengers with a big grin on my face thinking that I must
be the happiest person on this airplane.
As we took to the sky I realized that I was finally leaving India after
3½ years...incredible.
Later in the flight I was treated to a gorgeous sight out of
the window. A smiling crescent moon hung
above an incredibly vivid orange band of sunlight on a razor sharp
horizon. The sun was chasing us and over
the next hour the band turned more and more yellow as this new day attempted to
begin. We landed at the brand new
airport in Doha early in the morning. I
had a 7 hour layover there but found that the time passed relatively quickly as
they even had comfy chaise lounges to relax in.
The only thing missing was the beach:
Doha's tarmac:
The flight to Amman took me over Saudi Arabia and it was a
mesmerizing site to see the seemingly never ending desert. I’d never been to Jordan before but I would
only experience it from the airport. It
was still a fairly barren landscape but not as much as Saudi Arabia although there
were a number of dust devils whipping their way across the countryside as we landed
at the small terminal.
Crop circles:
As I exited the plane and began to walk down the causeway an
official came up and asked me if I was flying on to Israel on a flight with
Arkia airways. He instructed me to follow
him as he collected other passengers on the same flight. Eventually our small group of 12-14 people walked
through a doorway into the bowels of the terminal. I walked past a Jordanian guard who was
smoking a cigarette which seemed so odd to me...are we back in the 70s here? We waited in a hallway beside a room with
x-ray machines and other security equipment and the walls were adorned with
Israeli flags and posters showing some of the country’s tourist sites. After a few minutes we were told to collect
our luggage from a nearby room and then one by one we were led into the
security room. I was the last one in for
screening and I was quite amazed with how thorough they were.
The questioning was performed by a woman in her early
30s. She asked why I was going to
Israel, had I been there before, who did I know there, where was I coming from. Thankfully Naomi had prepared me for this
beforehand so I had paperwork with my itinerary for my stay including some
hotel reservations we had already made.
The woman relayed my story to a higher level security official and then
returned with another battery of questions including “How long have you known
Naomi? How long have you been planning
to visit her? Why did you only buy your
airplane ticket a week and a half ago?”
To the last one I replied that I was waiting for the monsoon season to
begin in Goa as that would end my tandem paragliding season (which was a bit of
a fib). I offered the information that I
used to be an IT guy for 13 years then quit my job to travel the world and do
some paragliding, to which she responded “And you just got stuck in
India?” She didn’t ask why, just assumed
that the travel bug had landed me there so thankfully my Indian saga never came
into the equation. Eventually she asked
if she could phone Naomi which I was more than happy for her to do as Naomi
used to work in airport security and would know what needed to be said. Sure enough, after a five minute phone call
and a few more questions they proceeded to check my bags and then I was good to
go.
As it turned out, the 12-14 people in that group were all of
the passengers for the short flight from Amman to Tel Aviv so soon after, over
an hour before our scheduled flight time, we were allowed to hop on the bus
that took us across the tarmac to the turbo prop plane. All of the security officials, who were
wearing normal street clothes, accompanied us on the flight and they almost
outnumbered the passengers! I asked them
if they flew out every day to do this but it turned out to just be twice a week
that this flight was scheduled. I have
to hand it to the Israelis, they take their security seriously, as they have
to, and they are damn good at it.
During the short 25 minute flight I could see smoke from a
large fire and later found out that it was a bush fire near Jerusalem which was
headline news that evening. Arriving at
Ben Gurion airport it was relatively quick to retrieve my bags and go through
immigration and Naomi was already there waiting for me as I had texted her to
let her know I’d be an hour early. How
often does that happen? A flight
arriving that early!
Hills near the border with Israel, you can just make out the smoke from that fire at the top:
Many settlements:
Hopping in the car to head to Naomi’s place in Kfar Saba, a
suburb of Tel Aviv, the first things that I noticed were the lack of garbage on
the sides of the streets and the absence of honking cars and stray cows...ah, back
in the Western World.
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