O ! MAN I am still alive in OMAN

A month passed as I stepped out of my nation ‘India’.

Leaving things to destiny, I landed in Muscat international airport, Oman on an employment visa on 29-Jan, 2011. Flying time was just 3 ½ hours, my heart-beat grew faster as I reached the terminal inter-twined with happiness and anxiety. Unfortunately, stranded for two hours for lack of proper visa clearance. Nevertheless, things went on well and found my way back home with the support of near and dear ones here.

One day passed ! A week ! A fortnight ! and a month now !

An incident that kicked off minuscule in Egypt cracked ripples across Middle-East. Egyptian rights groups protested for stepping down of their president Mubarak. Thereafter, the forces and anti-social elements working in near-by states Libya, Armenia, Tunisia staged mass protests and demonstrations against their governments. Economic activity came to a standstill. And, inspired this footage, the Omanis here initially launched soft disapproval for want of salary hikes and removal of ex-pats in certain industries. All of a sudden, they became outrageous and set ablaze some shopping mall in a city named Sohar.

People here believe in the ruling power and supremacy of ‘His Majesty’ who has transpired Oman over 40 years and led to its development. Yet, this turnaround of events would not stop disturbing the peace of mind for expats in Oman. The fact that 15-20 years ago a similar kind of protest had happened and did not blew up further may have pacified a few expats. In the meanwhile, the Indian embassy made the right move to advertise and call for requisite information (passport and civil resident card details) of Indians living here for updating in their central database for use in case of exigencies.

I never panicked and was too optimistic that Muscat will not be hit by any bad angels. Spoke to some Omanis in my office, they were sharing the same opinion as mine. Few were sarcastic, trying to frighten, albeit I kept my cool as always (All is well !). Never ever in this months’ time I grudged of living in this part of the continent, as it was truly great and worth relishing.

(dropped my eye-brows, put down my glasses, deeply took off meditating into next month events !)