Interesting end to a Journey

Again real life stuff, I don’t know why such things keep happening to me….. but this is really interesting…

January 2005, on my way to Abu Dhabi (UAE) for a commercial product launch of the project on which we had been working for last 5 months… I start my journey at 6:00 PM in Baroda (India).. my flight to Mumbai is just 45 mins.. those were one of the most uncomfortable seats, and no prices for guessing the airline… “Indian” … Anyways.. reached Mumbai around 9 PM. My manager was in Mumbai for some work so went to the hotel where they were staying…

I wasn’t new coming to Mumbai.. but I don’t know why I took the cool cab.. and the meter of its meter was running faster than the scoreboard when Sachin is batting in full flow.. I ended up paying 150 bucks for something which should have cost me 50 bucks in a rickshaw.. I couldn’t help it .. bcoz the meter showed it and of course the Mumbai taxi guys wont let u go without paying luggage even for 1 bag… so not a gud start to the journey..

My Flight was around 7:30 in the morning so I had to get up early n reach airport around 4:30 , so no gud sleep. Normally the flight to Abu Dhabi is just 2.5 hours but the one they booked for me was via Muscat … so it was going to take 5 hours… not used to long flights.. I somehow reached Abu Dhabi around 10 AM (UAE Time). I was out by 11:30 AM.

The driver was waiting for me and I had some relief. As we reached the city, he stopped at a hotel which is owned by our client. I was surprised on why isn’t he (driver) taking me home after I have traveling for last 16 hours without much sleep…he said my manager is there and wants to talk about something. I thought may be just some 5 min welcome talk.

Now here is the biggest twist of my life………………

I go up stairs to a conference room and as soon as I enter the guy standing there says “ Here is Mr. Rahul and he will give us the presentation on UAEX Application and its launch” …. And I had 25 people sitting in front of me………

It took exactly 30 sec for me to close my mouth which was open because of the shock and another 30 seconds to come to senses. And the first thing that came out of my mouth was “Can I please wash my face because I am coming directly from the airport”….lol. now it sounds hilarious but trust me it wasn’t if you were standing in that situation with 25 people looking at u …

While washing my face I tried to give all nice blessings to my boss for not informing me of this meeting. So left with no choice I had to present to these people for another 2 hours. After which they enjoyed nice lunch in the same hotel and I was just looking at them standing (I couldn’t eat because I had not even brushed my teeth)L .

This was a horrifying experience but I some how managed it. Presentation went well and I gave some hearing (if not a lot) to my manager for not letting me know in advance.

Hope this was an interesting read…

Keep Smiling J