Impossible is nothing - well!

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It indeed was a very nostalgic feeling going through the transborder gates at T3 of pearson international where i spent a lot of time working.  I have often regarded it as the incubator where dreams were dreamed and built thereafter. 

But lets start from the beginning, where the real story actually resides. So a day before on Thursday, I was at Viveks house packing all sorts of masalas and other things which are considered staple in most parts of the world including parts of Africa. I was packing, almonds, corn flakes amongst other things such as blenders and all sorts of 'GITTS' mixes. Now one might think that all of these are available at your nearest grocery store which in the case of most torontonions is the next corner strip mall, thanks to the great advances in Indian Grocery shopping experience that there is no real need to go India, they bring India to you. But the real question wasn't that the question to be asked was more along the lines of why I was packing all these spices and dosa and idly premixes? Well I was visiting Viv the next day and Food as you all know by now is very important.

In Viv's case it was even more important because the man had decided to run off to a remote island in the Caribbean, where the cost of a litre of milk was more than buying a whole cow or buffalo (based on your milk drinking preferences) in North America. I often wondered what the people there drink or eat and my thoughts were worse than those United Way, "$1 can can help a child eat for a month" commercials, although in this case $1 could only possibly buy you the rights to watch someone eat or drink. But that wasn't the case either, apparently 12 pack of beer was cheaper than an ounce of milk it seems, well I guess we can always substitute beer or other forms of liquor for milk any time and wondered if there was any scientific evidence to prove the same in some "facts of the day" column of Coffee News paper.  If you have ever read those copper colored coffee bean news papers you would understand what I mean to say.

So after packing an entire grocery store in the bag I wondered if I was really going on a vacation or I was a spice merchant exploring new and unknown lands where dairy exchange was probably a far more lucrative business deal. Oh well packing almost every thing in sight, I stopped over at my barber to look all super great for the honeys I was going to meet (or NOT). =). Sorry for the heart break ladies but, lets be honest we got to do what we got to do. To bring me back on earth my barber reminded me of how I should probably carry a hat or else my nice and round bald head will probably catch fire of some sorts in the 60 degree Celsius heat of the Caribbean. I almost hard a Eureka moment where I was happy and sad all at the same time. Happy because I was going on this spice merchant trip nice disguised as a vacation and sad because it was going to b very very hot. For a creature like me that likes ambient temperature I.e. anything over 15 degrees and below 25 degrees is game, anything other than that, probably not, this was probably not the best affair.

Left my barbers place around 10, to come home only to repack and find out that I only had room in my laptop bag to pack things for myself which at this point included essentials such as; well on a second thought lets not get into that cuz the list will raise many eye brows and will be frowned upon by others.

Now,  when have I travelled, and not had an issue of some sorts? I think I am jinxed for everywhere I go, trouble follows me. It seems trouble is always looking at me singing "every smile you make, every breath you take I'll be watching you". Well the first time I heard the song, I thought, what a romantic song. But the more I heard the more creepier it got to the point where an in an interview the composer admitted that the song was never meant to be romantic. Do check out the song for I think it is worth a listen especially if you have lived in the shadows of spy disguised as a bf/gf who are always snooping thorough your stuff. Don't shake your head and say, "oh buddy, you are in big big trouble for writing this" I mean after a while the difference between love and pain often diminishes and I have found a fine balance, which includes investing in a good pair of stealth ear plugs. I mean you can't get mad at things you don't hear right?

Well, getting back to the problems that I faced, as I do have to rant without which life just doesn't seem very fulfilling. I had booked this flight in June at some point far ahead of when I normally start procrastinating.  The flight was supposed to leave Toronto to Miami at 6:30 which demanded me to be at the airport around 4:00 am. I got to the airport all sleep deprived to find myself standing in front of this check in machine. Technology is supposed to make life easier for people but this piece of equipment was something else I thought. After swiping every possible way I could swipe my passport I gave up and started the manual entry possible. Quite typically I was looking at the line up to see a real agent and where I would have been had I chosen the option to see one. So after 10 minutes of trying various permutations and combinations I finally gave up with 7 pieces of paper that read "please see a check in agent", I guess this machine was not really helping anyways. Slowly yet steadily I got to the front of the line and to get the best seat possible, I put my "I am super sexy at 4:00 am smile". I was a bit worried for my bag was 6kg over weight much like the gate agent but what ever I said.  "Sir you don't have a flight with us today. The ticket you showing was cancelled". The 4am smile quickly turned to "I will get all gorilla on you women if you don't put me on this flight right now". Anyhow she tried various names that someone could have possibly tried. Now this Asian women right behind me key jumping around like a monkey who did not get his banana as there was only one check in agent and I was hogging her time. Well to end the misery of some 60 people behind me, the agent said, "sir, we sent you an email that your flight was moved to 11:30am." Oh! Did you I replied but in my mind I was like you lying sac of shit, you think i was born yesterday. In reality they had over booked but decided to move me, I guess the spice merchant had to wait a little longer to begin its journey, and a journey indeed it was.

In about 8 hours I was at st. Kitts and as soon as I got out of the plane, my initial reactions were "WTH", "Seriously" etc etc. I had suddenly developed a great amount of appreciation for the North American airport workers for the immigration people worked at a snails pace.  It took them about 1.5 hours to clear out a 21 passenger line up. As soon as I got out, Viv was waiting there to receive me. We quickly loaded the baggage into the van and went towards the ferry which was supposed to take us to Nevis at 9pm sharp. Well the only thing that happened sharp at the islands was delays for the ferry didn't leave till 9:45 because the driver had decided to take a longer dinner break at the expense of all those waiting to be transported across the ocean. Well, this was only the first of many incidents but I will describe them in some blogs to follow.

Seated inside the van, there were many questions that my mind asked per usual. Mind is a very funny thing where it is inquisitive, afraid and risk taker all at the same time which proves to be a very deadly combination. Anyhow, so my MBA brain thought what the 'cost of dreams' is, now dreams are good to have but when does the cost outweigh the benefits of it. Lost in these thoughts I looked at Vivek who wiped his forehead of all the sweat for it was 38 degrees and humid for it has just rained. The guy who wouldn't take the car with me sometimes because it has no ac in Canada sat here struggling because one virtuous day a light bulb lit in his head which said, "lets become a doctor and Mr. man showed up to the island sooner than later. What about the other dreams, dreams to become a P. Eng. for he had just joined the "iron ring on the pinky finger club of engineers" and dreams to one day do something bigger and make a great living in Canada, dreams to be a part of people who mattered on a daily basis, dreams to dream....

Questions are many, I thought!, yet answers seldom really point us in any direction for the answers are only right in hind sight. I myself wish to dream dreams as large one day for my dreams are often limited to "wonder what's for dinner tonight?" Which was exactly what I thought as we stepped out of the van to walk towards the ferry to realize how sea sick I can actually get.

Life throws many curve balls at you but in my case the last few years had all been curve balls and sometimes a different game altogether. I wished that my friend could one day save a life of someone who matters to someone who also dreamed that someone was there to help them cure their illness.

Wishes are many yet dreams only a few, the more you dream the more you know that nothing is impossible. Absolutely nothing!