ڈھوک رانجھن دی

Apologies for being away for so long. Its what we call, getting out of the zone. It happens at work as well, sometimes, but we then try to get back in quickly, as staying out for long is not an option But here … I just stayed out of the zone, as there was no calling back, except some kind reminders from Attiya, for which I am grateful. Anyway … now I am trying to get back … and hope to stay in the zone, although there is some other interesting stuff coming along as well, in the near future insha’Allah

Lets start where we left …

It was a nice Wednesday morning in Makkah, when we were told that buses for Madinah al Munawwara will be arriving soon, so we should pack up, get our luggage to hotel reception, and be on our toes. And so we did. After putting our luggage at the reception, and staying on our toes for a while, we realized it gonna take a while, and we can safely get off our toes. And so we did. Back in our rooms, back on our beds, as the journey ahead was an exciting one, and a long one, a journey of a life-time, and we wanted to live every moment of it.

Outside, on the road, there were people all around, getting out, reaching out to their buses, getting their luggage, with their eyes shining with the excitement and hope to finally get their gaze on the sabz gumbad of Roza-e-Mubarak.

Around 11.00 am, there was the final call, finally. Buses had arrived, and we had our marching orders. We helped each other to get our luggage to the buses, as they were not directly outside the hotel, rather on a side road, because of the congestion on the road.

We were a fairly large group, and I think we had 4 buses for us. Once we all boarded the buses, our group leader went into each of the buses and announced the name and face of the contact person for each bus to lead the journey, as each bus would move on a different pace. When he came to our bus, he first apologized that he will not be able to join us in this journey, as he had some administration business to do in Makkah, and will join us in a day or so. And then came a surprising announcement from him, he nominated me as the contact person for our bus, in his absence. I was like :O I was about to express my concerns, as I was a first-timer, and I wasnt fluent in Arabic, the driver and everything else outside the bus being Arabic, and I had no experience in handling Haj-journey-formalities anyway, but then I realized this might be an opportunity to serve the fellow Hajjis, and help them, and that has its own reward. So I stood up and accepted the responsibility. I tried to collect as much information as I can, from our group leader, about the stuff to expect during the journey, and tried to remember the Arabic lessons that I took at uni I also had a refresher course on Arabic before going to Hajj; but I didnt expect an exam like this.

Khair … the journey began. As we were moving out of Makkah, we saw Masjid-e-Ayesha as well. This is the place where you have to come to do Ihram, if you plan to do Umrah, while you are in Makkah.

First part of my exam was about unregistering the Hajjis on exiting Makkah. Govt. of Saudi Arabia has a very sophisticated system to track Hajjis. When we left Jeddah, our passports were taken into custody, although they would travel with us, wherever we go. Upon entering Makkah, the representative of Muallim, traveling with us, presented our passports to the registration office outside Makkah. Now while we were exiting Makkah, the driver had our passports, and he would take them to the registration office and update our status as we exit the city.

As the bus stopped by the registration office, I heard some loud voices at the front of the bus. I was sitting at the back. Sensing some trouble, I approached the driver and tried to put my Arabic speaking skills to some real-life test. After a bit of back and forth, spelling out his and mine sentences with a full stop after every word, what I could gather was horrible. The number of people present in the bus, was 1 less than the number of passports driver had. That meant 1 person was missing. Ohh yes, the count, is one the most important things to remember when you are leading a journey. As leader of that group, I was genuinely worried. The driver was a nice person, but the registration office staff, who have by now, boarded the bus, didnt seem to care that I had poor Arabic speaking skills. All they wanted was an answer about the whereabouts of the missing person. It, indeed, was a big deal, and potentially, a big trouble.

Just to be sure, we did the counting again only to find out that driver was right. Number of passports, was 1 more than the number of people. I tried to contact my actual group leader, who was in Makkah, and as you would expect, as per Murphy’s law, he wouldnt pick up the phone.

I kept thinking and thinking, with the staff speaking some tough Arabic near my ears, that this was our first stop, and nobody had gotten off the bus yet, how can we miss 1 person. What this means was that we didnt have that 1 person on the bus since the start of the journey, and that means it was not the person missing, it was the passport which was extra. I saw some hope.

I tried to explain all of this to the registration staff, who didnt pay any attention first, as I probably, wasnt making any sense, thanks to my Arabic skills. I rephrased my sentences, and that probably made some sense this time, as they seemed to be paying attention now. How do we know this for sure? was their natural reaction to my argument. Right at that moment, Allah sent some ghaibi-maddad , and one of the group members suggested that there might be an expired passport attached wi th a valid passport, hence giving the +1 count. I felt like hugging him right then, but the situation was not appropriate. So I translated this possibility to Arabic, and registration staff was now listesning to us fully. And we unpacked the bundle of passports in front of them, and started counting the passports, seperating them one by one. Fortunately that group member was right, and the extra passport was seen near the start of the counting, attached to another valid passport. This wasnt obvious early on, as the passports were bundled together and we were counting them depedning upon their cover, and nothing else.

Phewwww !!!

I indeed was relieved and so was the driver Thanks to Allah, I passed the first part of the exam.

I’ll come back to our journey in next post and share the remaining bits insha’Allah. Stay tuned !!!