This would be sometime in 1986 or 1987 and I had just sold my first, truly ancient 1979-era Honda Civic to buy a relatively "newer" Mazda 626 which was a great hit in the Indian student community at UT-Dallas. This car was perhaps the only car in the community that could safely be taken on long drives on highways without fear of it breaking down. So I decided that we will drive down to the Big Bend National Park. We were a rather eclectic group. There was Paddy Padmanabhan from my own UT-Dallas and there was R 'Korak' Sivakumar and Abhay 'Madu' Maheshwari from Albuquerque in New Mexico and so the route was rather complex.
Paddy and I would head West from Dallas Fort Worth in my Mazda 626 and Korak and Madu would drive down from Albuquerque -- in Korak's 1978 Honda Accord -- and we would meet somewhere in the middle of the White Sands National Park -- close to where the nuclear bombs were tested during the Manhattan Project -- and then we would drive down South towards the Mexican border. Which was nice except that we had not planned for the fact that the White Sands desert was a HUGE area with hardly any landmarks and there was no easy way for two cars arriving from two different directions to find each other!
This was before Google Maps and even before the era of mobile phones. This meant that once we hit the road, there was no way to communicate. The only thing that we had was a Rand McNally road map with which we were expected to find each other and the way to Big Bend. Our first waypoint was Alamogordo, a fairly big city in New Mexico. Here, from a public phone booth, we placed a long distance call to Korak and his apartment mate told us that he and Chandru had already left Albuquerque and were heading for Las Cruces. This is where things became very difficult! Between Alamogordo and Las Cruces lies the vast, vast, VAST White Sands desert and two cars trying to find each other here is a very difficult task. Once again each of us called the other's apartment mates and used them to pass messages to the other party, if and when they called. In hindsight, this was an utter failure in our planning process and we had no one to blame but ourselves, but what to do? Eventually we ended up parking our cars with the headlights on and standing on the bonnet and the roof to see if we could spot the other car -- and eventually we did! Whew what a rendezvous!
Now that we had found each other, it was a relatively smooth drive down to the campground inside the park and I remember that we ate our rather cold dinner in the light of the headlights of our two cars.
Anyway, now that we were in Big Bend, where is the border crossing that we were talking about?
The southern edge of the national park is bounded by the Rio Grande -- the Grand River -- that forms the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Our camp ground was at a little distance from the river and we went to see it next morning.
And then ...
We decided to swim across the river and "visit" Mexico. All without a single document in hand!
This was of course in an era well before 9/11 and America was a very relaxed place. Other than our driver's licenses, we had no other documents and neither was there anyone to check them, even if we had any documents. It was all fun and games. We swam to and fro across the river, which was not as great a feat as it seems to sound because the Grand River was not much wider than our very own Kangsabati in summer!
There was one more interesting event during this trip. On the way back, or perhaps we were just moving around, one of our cars -- and I do not remember which one -- had a puncture! Now this would not have been such an issue because we both had a spare tyre each but the problem was the wrench with which we had open the lug nuts. Both our cars were Japanese made and to metric dimensions while the wrench that we had was that of an American car made to Imperial British dimensions. So there was no way that it could be used to open a metric nut! After struggling with this for a nearly half an hour we saw a Park Ranger driving past and fortunately he had both kinds of wrenches in his car -- apparently this was a common problem with tourists -- and he gave us the correct one. Having struggled on this nut for so long, we were so delighted to get the right wrench that we changed the tyre in record time and I distinctly remember the Park Ranger telling us "Do you guys work at a Formula 1 pit-stop?"
But yes, we did cross the border!
However the next such "illegal" border crossing was much more complex.
Indira and I were travelling back to US and our route was through Dacca -- that was the cheapest route from London, via Abu Dhabi and Dacca to Calcutta.
Dacca airport was not the most happening or exciting place where we would have to spend nearly six to eight hours. But we did not have a visa to enter Bangladesh and so we were stuck.
But we noticed that once the passengers who were terminating their journey here -- unlike us, who were in transit -- had passed through immigration and customs, there was no one manning these counters any more. We could actually see the roads of Dacca through the doors of the airport.
Indira and I thought that we could get some kind of a transit visa to visit the city but there was no one to even ask. No police, no guards, no immigration or customs staff ... so we just walked out into the street.
Dacca is of course an utterly pointless city and to me it seemed just like Kidderpore or Park Circus. Anyway we checked into a hotel and wanted to order ilish fish. Sorry, not available. So what is available? Only Chicken! And we have been having Chicken in the US for the past four years.
Anyway, there was nothing much to do or see in this wretched city. So after a little nap, and a bit more, in a room of a seedy hotel -- Hotel Zacharia -- we decided to head back to the airport and this is where disaster struck!
While going out, the immigration counters had been closed and empty but now each and every counter had an officer checking passports! We had our passports of course but we had no visas to enter Bangladesh and so we were technically illegal aliens and who knows what awaited us.
For a moment I was in utter panic. We did not have mobile phones so we could not talk to anyone anywhere and I was wondering what to do? Should I risk taking the land route to the Bongaon border and see if I could swim across the Ichhamati? But what about luggage? and what about Indira? Utter panic.
And then I remembered!
At IIT Kharagpur, there had been one Bangladeshi student called Zahid and he was studying Mining. Now if he was in Bangladesh, where could an engineer find a job? Actually he could have been anywhere, but could he in Dacca airport? I decided to check. I walked up to the enquiry counter and asked if there was one Mr Zahidul Islam who was an engineer that I wanted to meet.
And wonder of wonders! Yes, he was indeed working at a reasonably senior position in the airport itself. The mathematical probability of finding him in the airport was, of course, close to zero but it was not zero! It was a small but finite value. And that made all the difference. With great trepidation Indira and I reached his office and knocked. Would he recognise me? I had last met him in 1984 and this was 1989 and more importantly would he help? Could he help?
Fortune was truly smiling on us that day. Not only did Zahid recognise me and readily agreed to help. In fact he did not have to do much. His office was such that one door opened towards the land-side -- the one through which we had entered his office -- and he has a second door that opened towards the air-side! After treating us to some tea, he simply opened the air-side door and allowed us to go to the transit lounge without having to pass through immigration or customs.
Unbelievable though it may sound, this was how easy and simple it was in those days. Had it been today, we could not have come back to Calcutta without a major hue and cry.
After coming back to Calcutta, I wanted to thank Zahid but in those days communication was not easy. There was no internet or email, phone calls were difficult and international calls were insanely expensive. Besides, life took over: I started a new job at Tisco, moved to Jamshedpur, and my son Wrahool was born. I could never get back to him and thank him for his great help.
Many many years later, I came across his profile in Facebook and even though he was a very irregular user, I still sent him a friend request. Unfortunately he never accepted my request.
