A Traveling Experience

chillibreeze writer — Ranbir Parmar

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Certain things about this world you learn only when you travel. No amount of listening to exhaustive anecdotes or going through the well-documented travelogues will make you wiser about these facts. For instance, nobody cared to tell me, before I actually visited London last year, that the sun sets well after 9.30 P.M. in that part of the world. When my host motioned me towards dinner table, I gaped with disbelief at the shining daylight outside the polygonal bay-window. I had to dine without my regular daily drink which I religiously enjoy after sunset.

Similarly, I had to travel to New York to learn that Americans drive on right side of the road, not the left, and they call a lift an elevator. The usual toilet becomes a restroom there and an engaged phone is ‘busy’. Our desi Metro, which is called a tube in London, transforms into Subway in New York.

But sometimes these learning experiences turn out to be a bit sour if not altogether bitter. This, we found out during our first chance to travel outside our country a few years ago when my wife and I embarked upon a trip to Dubai. The place being famous as a shopping heaven, we were burdened with requests from our relatives and friends. Most of them insisted on paying in advance for these articles. Our wallets were overflowing with hard cash when we reached the airport. We did not take the trouble to exchange our Indian rupees into some international currency though there were many outlets available. In this era of liberalized currency laws, who will bother about us taking a few thousand rupees outside the country, we thought.

But we were wrong! At the custom clearance check post, we were interrogated by a grim looking official about how much currency we were carrying with us. All the contents of our wallets and handbags were emptied on the table. Our holdings amounted to Rs. 90,000. The official told us in a cool, businesslike voice that we are entitled to carry Rs. 5000 per person only and the rest of the sum would be confiscated. He was unmoved by all our pleadings that we were unaware of the regulations else we would have exchanged the money on entering the airport. Ignorance of law is not an excuse for breaking the law, he parroted the cliché vacantly.

But he softened a bit when I told him that I was a bank employee on my first trip abroad on a shoestring budget financed by my leave travel concession. Staring straight into my eyes, he asked me to pay him eight thousand rupees and he would allow us to exchange the rest of the amount. “And not a rupee less will do,” he added with an air of finality. When I returned after exchanging my money and handing over the amount of bribe to a person manning the bank counter, cursing that custom man all the time, I found him standing with my wife where I left him.

“Are you thankful to me?” he asked handing over our boarding passes to me.
“I am not sure,” I mumbled.
“You should be,” he whispered, smiling wistfully, as we turned on our way to board the plane.

Later, on board the plane, a co-passenger enlightened me about the custom regulations. He expressed his surprise as to why that custom official let us off. “These officers get 10% of the confiscated amount as reward or recovery-fee, the sum exactly equal to what he took from you as bribe!” the co-passenger added.

Till today, I have not been able to decide as to how I should remember that custom official - as an ordinary cog in our corrupt bureaucratic machinery or a compassionate benefactor.

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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in October, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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—About our writer:

Ranbir Parmar is an MA in English Literature. A retired bank officer, he has made forays in journalism and teaching English language as well. He has written articles, human interest stories and travelogues for various newspapers. His forte is documenting life around him in evocative language. He has also done some book reviews and Hindi film reviews. A couple of short stories (un-published) are also a part of his portfolio.

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