Friday morning was a mad rush. First to the airport then in search of a police station to lodge a complaint. Abu Dhabi becomes ghost town on friday mornings. There is hardly anyone on the streets, almost nothing is open. Including the police station apparently! They refused to file an FIR in the police station we went to and told us to come back on sunday.
Saturday Sumit spoke to his company PR officer (person who helps with local administrative process) and he advised that rather than go to the police, it was better to go straight to the immigration office.
Sunday at the immigration office, Sumit was told he couldnt file a report for missing passport in Abu Dhabi as his visa was from Dubai, so he had to go there. He went to the taxi company's office hoping to identify the cab driver and maybe calling. The good thing was we had had a lady driver, and there are only few of those here.
Monday Sumit was back in immigration office with his PRO to try to atleast file the FIR. Again there were told to go to Dubai. When asked what will happen if in Dubai they do not accept, since we reside in Abu Dhabi and the passport was lost here, the simple reply was, 'we will send you back to them'.
By this point we were quite frustrated. It had been 4 days and so far we hadnt gotten anywhere, not even an FIR. We had been calling the airport daily to check on any updates. Every morning our conversations started with a recap of what had happened at the airport that day. Speculating on potential scenarios. Should we go to the Indian Embassy straight? should we go to Dubai and try?
August is start of start of the fasting month, nearly all work comes to a stand still. Sumit's visa was expiring, and we were gonna do the renewal this month. Usually visa renewal required a visit out of the country, so we did not want to delay that, since I wouldnt be able to travel very soon. We needed to apply for Sumit's parents visa after his renewal, so that they were able to be here for my delivery. So we needed to start the passport process real soon.
As we were heading to bed, close to midnight, we got a call from the airport police saying that they found his passport. We ran out of the house like crazy, even before the call ended. I dont think too many people run around the airport if they are not flying out or in.
Funny incident of the day:
The Pakistani taxi driver found it amusing that I was pregnant, we had no luggage, we seemed to have ran down the road at midnight and were rushing to the airport. He couldnt contain himself, he asked us with a very serious look 'aap bhag ke shaadi kar rahe ho kya?' (are you running away and getting married?)!!!!
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