Quiet An Eventful NZ

The story starts from April end. I was on a Holiday, and I got a call to check my availability for yet another Business Trip. Exciting New Zealand, I got the goose bumps immediately; for the land of nature and Penguins. I applied for my Visa of the 4th of May, which supposedly should be issued within 4 days. But, the NZ immediately got process got changed on 3rd of May, and thus the delays to my VISA approval was inevitable. Moreover, the new process was not aware to my Travel Agent. Thus it results a rejection in the VISA plea, because of missing TRUE Copy attestation of my documents. So far so good, I reapplied for the Visa on 12th once again, with the hopes of getting it through but the following Friday, I came to know, a rejection once again. This time because of the missing TRUE Copy stamp, the stamp is in bold emphasize a handwritten TRUE Copy doesn’t count to NZ immigration. OK, now what, the Documents were re-submitted with the TRUE COPY stamp. The pressure from the client was high. I need to be in the country ASAP. I was waiting fingers crossed for the VISA, but alas on the 18th I got a call, that one of the documents which had printing on both the sides didn’t have the corresponding TRUE Copy stamp. A big fuss of the stamp, I submitted the documents, though I didn’t want to, that too because the passport was stuck in the consulate. And to take it back will again 4-5 days, so better give a try to cross the hurdle. The last when all the documents were there, then my application itself was found to be incorrect. To the NZ consulate, the purpose of my Visit didn’t fall into Visitor’s Visa category, but to the Work VISA category. Now what, the conflict of should I shouldn’t I was a taking a toll on me, finally I applied for it. This time whoa, I got the VISA issued. Now, next I had to fly to NZ within a day. And my Passport was to be delivered on the Bombay International Airport. Good, it does happen in the fast pace, world of the day. I got the Passport on the Airport and then fly to my dreams.
The flight in Mumbai was late by two hours, my waiting in Mumbai grossed to more than 4. OK, this also happens. The next stop was Hong Kong, and here the transit time is 10 hours. What can one do, within few 100 square meters at an unknown place for 10 hours, slept, woke, slept, woke,…, and I didn’t know what else did I do on the Hong Kong Airport. The next flight to Auckland was quiet good. I had the enough of the sleep, and when I woke in the morning, the extremities of the Pacific visible from the flight window were just unimaginable. I landed, and went through the security check. Now, a different flight to Wellington, after I got my boarding pass done, a good looking Indian called me. Yes called me. She was a first time flier, and thus looking for some Indian companion as she also had to transit to the domestic airport like me. She had to go to Christchurch. The Auckland International, and the domestic Airport are some distance, and when you transit between, you’ll feel like walking in the park. The pain of journey had just gone away, and I was gazing the nature. Every color I saw had definite meaning, grass should be green, sky should be blue, rose should be red, every color was purer and I was seeing for the very first time in my life. The excitement was high. The Flight to Wellington, was relaxed, we were hardly, 20-25 people travelling in Boeing 737, with a majority of the seats unoccupied. This was also unique to my experience. From the nation of 1.2 billion people, I’d never seen a square yard of land, where people are not struggling to stand on.
The Wellington city has everything, the harbor, the trains, the roads, and the airport. And if you want to measure it by dimension, you can walk through from one end to another in a matter of few hours. Rather the village I belonged has bigger boundaries. Despite it being small, with all possible means of commutation, the city is clean as anything. I came out of the Airport, and reached my Hotel. The reception greeted me, and said my Boss left me a message to have dinner with him. I was feeling lucky. But in NZ, in hotels even though it’s a 5-star, you don’t get Internet as complimentary, and even the charges for a day is 30$. Anyways, for the first day I thought of spending 30$. In the evening had very beer, and kind of a warm homely welcome into a city of unknown. I got access to my local office, where I can get access to internet. So the very first problem of internet got solved. But actually it created another problem, to which I’ll come later.
I joined my client, for the Project I came for. But good news, though the client had set a laptop for me, but login for me was not created. A helpdesk ticket had to be raised, which the client though raised. But the timeline for the login creation there is minimum 4 days, so is the case with the issuance of Access Cards. Thus I joined the project for some number of days out of which for 4 days I didn’t have the computer itself. Good, paid for doing nothing. But it’s not so, I plugged in my laptop in their network to start with my work. But with this I can’t access the internet, only the black terminals of putty. So for initial days my routine was to come back from the client office and visit to my local office for some official purpose. The office here though in Wellington is quiet like a startup, being executed but just two individuals. So I remained in office alone after business hours. And one fine day, at around 9.00 pm, after working on some stuff, I stood and went to washroom. We are from India, where to both get in and get out of the office premises you have to have the access card. So chances of forgetting the card are zero, especially if you are all alone in the office. But this happened to me, when I came back I realized I forgot to carry something, my access card with me. My stuff was inside, and I was outside, standing in just a shirt at 4 degree Celsius. At times, you can think of many things, but you can’t hold of anything. Same was here with me; my fears were holding me, fear of cold, fear of the time, and fear of my stuff my lying inside? I got to the hotel, slept in worries, and hurried to the local office to collect my stuff. This was the first problem I created for me. The stuff was important, as office is small with just two, I couldn’t be sure if they were not on leave for next few days. The decision to shift the Hotel was coming to actuation; I roam to a few places for the cheap internet services. Luckily or unluckily, I got a service apartment where the Internet was complementary.
The next few days went in the dreams; I was acclimatizing to the chills of June in Wellington. The Weather may not be good, but I don’t have the complaints about it. It was not as bad to avoid one going out. I was on the nature trip. The ferry visit to the secluded Soms island was something I’ll never miss. It’s marvelously beautiful. The client office was good few Indians do work over here. And one of them developed a good connection with me. He’s from Kerala, living in Wellington since 1988. Very good person, and one fine weekend, he called me to his home for some dinner, and prayers, the Indian community peoples do round-robin based in their respective homes. I was for having the taste of home food away from the homeland. The day came I was excited to go over his place, and didn’t want him to wait for me, if he come by little earlier. The excitement is just my pain, I would say. I’ll try to avoid. Reason, we will come to know. I waited for him in front of my Apartment building. He came and the first thing I noticed was his car had the number plate “ADITYA”, a very unnatural thing to see a name on the car number plate. From so many days of my residence in Wellington, I never seen the police, thus convinced people lives by the law here, by choice not by force. I asked him how come, a number plate without number, he said the car has the number/name “ADITYA”. In NZ, you can buy custom number plates if they are available - so a new amazement to my life. I reached his home, and the gratitude his family showed was just not believable. I felt like his family. In the evening, many people, including some English, gathered together in his hall. All may were the regular member of the community visit, but for the likes of me, they carry the transcripts. I was given the transcript of Sanskrit shloks/prayer, And it was not small, more than 30 pages. I never prayed in India, and I was doing in New Zealand that too in Sanskrit, with a couple of English men and women. Even the children of the age group of 5-7 had memorized all the chants. One more amazement to see Sanskrit and the prayers are being respected so much in this part of the world, whereas it’s loosing it’s footprints in its origin lands. The dinner afterwards was for 30 people, and that too was cooked by a business woman, high up in the corporate ladder all alone, with considerable help from my colleague. In NZ, keeping a servant for the house hold work is out of scope to think. Here the people, do all their stuff by themselves. Youth in India are trying to be outgoing, falsely following the west or developed, but the developed are still attached to their roots, they do their household and they are outgoing. Anyways, after having dinner at my colleagues place, it was around 10:00 pm, I asked for my leave, and he genuinely accepted. He had to drop me back to my apartment. And while travelling back to home, I realized I didn’t have the keys to my apartment. It was nowhere in the car, in of the pockets. Feeling guilty of troubling him, I asked for his excuse, as I thought I lost my keys. At 10:00 pm in the night, where darkness hits at 6:00 pm, i had no place to go, without my keys, except to his home back. We searched everywhere, every corner I moved in their apartment. My face was grin once again, all the key and access cards, there were 4 of them, all were ringed to the same key chain. So I’d lost literally lost every available access points to me in Wellington. Later when lost we called to the apartment receptions in the hopes if anyone around. There were hope, one of reception girls stayed in the same building, was available and thus I was allowed to comeback and the duplicate keys, duplicate were available to unlock my room. It looks good, but I was worried of loosing other keys attached to ring, and thus was fingers crossed to be on the sight, where I might have forgotten my keys at my apartment itself. Whoa, the same happened, the keys were lying there on my study table.
Days passed by some events happened, and one fine day while back from office, I thought of buing some pre-cook food. The instruction said to heat it in a conventional oven for about 15 minutes. The conventional oven is not a microwave oven, please keep in mind. I was relaxed keeping the stuff in the microwave set for 15 minutes, turned on and was roaming around. 15 minutes for oven are too much. It burnt the food. My apartment had the fire sensors make an automatic call out to the Fire Department in case of any fire. As soon as I opened the door of the oven smoke was filled in the apartment and all of a sudden fire alarm started buzzing and a building evacuation emergency was rolled out. I told the reception of my fault, and within 10 minutes, 4 fire trucks were standing in-front of the building. A plenty of Fire Fighters jumped on to the job. They were give the duplicate key to my room. And when they came out in 5 minutes, I was declared the creator of the problem, thus the false alarm. In NZ, the fine for the False alarm is 1000 NZD. The Fire Alarm is supposed to be considered malicious if it’s not from the genuine fire smoke. So if it could have been a fire, because of some heating in the oven, I wouldn’t be fined for anything, considering it an accident. But since Fire wasn’t I was made the victim for 1500$. So an event trip, may be further more to come.