I find it hard put my feelings about the last few turbulent months of my life in words. We have started a completely new chapter in Kozhikode, a place my husband always loved, to lead a retired life after being away in a foreign land for more than three decades. To uproot ourselves from our second home was not an easy task.
I was brought up and educated in Chennai and after my marriage I joined my husband in Muscat. Though we did not live a life of luxury and pomp, we were content and happy. We are lucky to have come back with loads of sweet memories, a couple of which I would like to share.
My first daughter was born at a time when employing a domestic help was unheard of where I stayed. I could not take anyone from India with me, because getting a visa in those days was not as easy as it is now.
But I should admit I was treated with affection, by the doctors and hospital staff, who helped me tide over the difficult phase. I had very loving neighbours too, from different parts of India, who were always ready to help. In spite of all this, my husband and I had anxious times looking after an infant, with no elders at home to guide us.
This experience, I would like to say, has made me stronger and braver at heart. She, and my second daughter who was born in Chennai, were raised in Muscat’s pleasant surroundings. We stayed at a place called Mutrah by the beautiful sea side. The ‘souq’ or market place was a famous land mark near our house. We moved into our house in October 1984 and stayed on till we left Muscat in April 2016.
Once we had to travel by bus to our neighbouring country UAE, which was less than five hours by road. That unfortunate day, the driver who was new to the place, had to follow the bus in front of us as he did not know the way. It was a very bad experience as the driver stopped at many times for various reasons. Moreover,there was a long queue at the border to stamp our visas. So we reached ten hours late! I decided to inform this to the authorities concerned and penned my grievances in a local newspaper.
I was pleasantly surprised when a week later I got a call from the General Manager of the government-run bus service, apologising for all that we had to endure. He promised me that it will never happen again and provided me with two free tickets to Dubai to prove his point!
We are lucky to have left a foreign land happily and been able to settle down to a life of serenity in our own land.
Email: arunaramachandran09@gmail.com