Lost my way

Lost my way

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Who doesn’t know the story of the cat and the harassed man? The man used to hate the cat of the neighbor which would often stray in his house. His exasperated wife asked him to take care of the cat. Dutifully he caught the cat and put it in a bag and left it in the nearby market place. By the time he returned home the cat was back already. Next day he took the cat boarded a bus and dropped him after a few stops and returned home by bus. Lo behold the cat was back after a few hours. The guy was furious so next day he boarded a taxi with the cat and got down at the outskirt from where a dense jungle starts and walked with the cat in the bag for more than one hour deep inside the forest and released the cat. His wife was worried as hours had passed but the guy was not back. In the night the guy returned looking haggard. On inquiry he said he lost the way and finally could come back home by following the cat.

Something like this happened to me.

It was my third visit to Oman for Hubara project where BHEL was building a gas power station for PDO (Petroleum Development Oman ).

I had gone to Hubara in Oman earlier occasions but was always accompanied by my colleagues. We would to take the charter flight from Muscat booked by PDO( Petroleum Development Oman), a joint venture with Burmah Shell).The boarding ticket would be a plastic thing given at Muscat airport on the production of Authorisation by PDO.It was a regular charter flight to cart experts required for their petrol and gas fields. From my last two visits I knew that Hubara was the next stop after Muscat. The airport of Hubara is a standard bare minimum structure in the desert , at the center of nowhere with miles of sandy dunes. Our office people would come to pick me up as otherwise there was no other conveyance available at Hubara.

This time i went alone. I deposited my luggage and boarded the low flying viscount plane. I think it was an old turbo prop plane flying at a height of 10,000 feet or so.The plane took off and gained height within minutes. The cabin was hot because of flying at that low altitude over the Sahara desert. I think it flew for about 45 minutes or so and then landed. I could see the Airport in the desert, a lone structure with some vehicles parked outside.

A few of us got down .I walked down to the airport and looked for familiar faces from our site office. I could not locate any, slowly the other passengers who had got down with me went out of the security gate, i could not see any vehicle outside. It was an unnerving situation for me; imagine me standing in a deserted airport without a clue. The plane was getting refueled.Luckily i had not gone out of security enclosure.

Suddenly i got a bright idea. I rushed back to the plane with my boarding pass. I scanned the luggage which was unloaded and waiting to be carted , my suitcase was not there among those. The luggage compartment was at the rear of the plane. I could see my suitcase sitting happily inside. I enquired from the steward where that particular luggage would go. He informed me that next stop was Hubara and that would go there. I let out a sigh of relief and boarded the plane back. All the small airports in that desert look alike because of standardization and because it is bang in the desert so there is no associated landmark to identify. The name of the airport was written in Arabic so i could not read that.

I was later informed by our office staff that alternate days the plane directly comes to Hubara from muscat and i must have taken that flight on my last two visits.

So like the man following the cat I was guided by my suitcase to my destination.