All Same, All Different

By Deepti Bhatia 

Let me tell you a story,
From the pages of our personal book,
And leave it to you to find,
The right-turn on wrong roads that we took

Sitting in the Immigration room I thought,
Why did we come here after all,
Was it the greed for foreign currency,
Was it the desire for continental stroll!

She sternly said, "Indians! I hate these guys"
These were the exact words I remember,
The lady in the black-n-white was rude,
And in this foreign land, we had no power

Was it a big sin leaving India for a 'better' life,
The definition of better we didn’t understand,
The Visa was expiring the coming month,
And the documents had additions to no-end

This might have seemed quite a minor thing,
So, the Gods-In-Power decided to try our patience more,
The pre-authorization concepts, with no credit card,
Our dollar card showed negative, we were INSECURED

The permanent project was uncertain,
The location thus dependent upon that,
We will be in the hotel for some time, alright,
'For how long ', the destiny seemed to forget

So, with no certain project, and no certain location,
Close-to-expiry Visa status, and bank-balance in gloom,
We waited and waited for the problems to solve,
Our 3 lives got confined to a hotel-room

The story of our woes was still incomplete,
There were a few sub-branches to the problem tree,
No accessible commutation, bank documents delayed reaching,
SSN card sent to wrong address, problems had no degree

Our worries as the parents were tied to a simple thing,
No school for our child, for want of a decided location,
A cheerful person turned into a depressed frustrated employee
Worrying about visa, besides routine forecasts and prediction

There was no miracle expected,
But patience was obviously close to its verge,
When one day, talking in the same hotel-room we realized,
Probably, we didn't even look, where we ought to search

Probably the life is not too bad here,
Probably this time is all good to celebrate,
Not left with any option other than sticking together,
Probably the best of the days, Time itself can create!

The immediate problem we had was the funds,
That was somehow sorted out by the emergency reserve,
Once settled, there was a little breathing time,
While we could think of other problem curves

No project and no location,
Why at all do we worry about that,
Not our head ache, let the management decide,
If nothing comes up, let us go back.

The minds felt relaxed, there was a guilt though,
No companions, no school for our child, why just her!
We were looking for the options, and still searching,
Hoping for something good, right now we didn’t have an answer

Other than this, the days are just perfect,
After one salary, the finances in a good graph,
Our favourite times are the daily evenings,
And the evening walks are at least an hour and a half

Nothing has changed much here,
The same hotel, the same room,
Friends came for lunch, few others invited for dinner,
This same place looks lively, no sorrow, no gloom

Our Visa is still pending,
The project is still unknown,
We just borrowed a new perspective,
And no more feel that we are alone!!