....Parceled.....

" Indians have the second largest population in the world "...its a universal truth.. (well actually according to me its a CHATPATA truth , knowing we are progressing fast,yet are still backward in some sense"). So it sounds really obvious to hear people going from India to some developed country....for an obvious reason - "good money".....

I shifted to Barcelona recently for my internship, so if you are new to the place the 1st thing you would do is to search for a place to sleep...which led me to a street, Neverland Street (name changed for obvious reasons), in the heart of Barcelona.

Since I didn't know any Spanish,the only option you are left wid is English,so as a sincere "lost" tourist, I stopped a person and asked " Excuse me can you please tell me the way to Neverland Street"....and the thing I heard was totally unexpected ,the guy said "Indian ho??" (I mean obviously u can't expect a person speaking with you in HINDI in the middle of Barcelona) a little surprised I said "ji , toh kya aap bata sakte hai ki yeh jagah kahan padegi,kyo ki mujhe koi rehne ki jagah chaiye".......

Now in these kinda situations what can you think of......whatever it is ......at least not what I heard "arre tension na lo yeh pura ilaka apne se hi bhara hua hai ...." (shocked???? hold your nerves.......its just the beginning)... and he was talking about the same "Neverland Street which is eventually one of the biggest touristy place of Barcelona".......

Well, to be really honest this was the 1st shock that Barcelona gave me...... I entered the street, and it gave me another shock..(yeah he was right).....everywhere all I could see were Indians or Pakistanis..., I mean it was not looking like a Spanish city ...Spanish people were looking like some tourists wandering in " Clean and Modern MUMBAI" (Jai Maharastra :D)

After these two shockers.....I made up my mind to be ready to face more......(thankfully it did help). So finally I landed up in a HOSTAL (an Indian one .....well almost all of them were run or owned or leased by Indians .....so one of the Indian one :D). Took a room and revived myself .....and in order to pass my spare time at night I talked to SHARMAJI (No it wasn't me :P)

SHARMAJI – skinny, of about 45years and a Marvari (you probably would be wondering, y I said Marvari!..well just in the beginning of the conversation he asked me "Are you a Marvari??"......I mean I am in Spain, the relevant question should be "Are you an Indian??” or “Where r u from in India??" but here he is asking me are you a Marvari.....as if he's gonna throw me out if I'm not....lol...

so being a li'l puzzled and scared (obviously that hostel was the only one having a room empty :P) I said "no ,well actually I don't know....all I know is that I'm from India...i never actually had classified myself like this, neways this place is FULL of Indians" and he replied "Uhh...han asal mein jayadatar dukane yahan are owned, run or leased by Marvaris, punjabis etc, baaki spanish logo ke yahan kaam karte hai"......(MAN..........can you expect that .......i mean the word "jyada" :O if it goes on like this you can imagine whats gonna happen in future.......) ...

So as a natural curiosity I asked him "How come so many ppl get the work permit I've believed that work permits in Europe are a hard catch".......therefore as usual I got one more shock....he said "Work Permit ... hah arre baba kahe chahiye work permit....????....yahan jayadatar bina paper ke hai ....aur paperwalo se jayada aaram se rehte hai.......kisse chaiye paper yahan huh" shocked I was feeling totally paranoid...i mean this is crazy , I asked him "ha'toh phir yeh log Europe mein aate kahan se hai??"....I mean how can a person be so cool about it ....He replied " aram se ..... kuch toh containers mein jo jahaj se yahan pahuch jaate hai ,agar woh pakde jaae toh jail mein unhe kuch din rakhke chor dete hai ....ho gayi Europe mein entry......aur jo baaki bache kuche hai unhe toh unke rishtedar jo yahan pehle se hai invitation se bula lete hai....."

PACKED IN CONTAINERS !!! man thats insane .....can you believe that!? Its like watching a guy dancing over a VOLCANO... :D, therefore I asked him .."Do they actually do that!!" (I know its a stupid question but you tell me won't you be asking that same question when you hear this)..........for this he calmly said "Haan comfortably, for the money they'll earn comfortably".

These calm words did have a lot of meanings hidden in them,meanings of sadness,silence and the stories of all the people (without papers) of what they suffered in order to come to this country..............

"for money , for money"

p.s. : It’s all my personal point of view and some fiction elements has also been used to make it more “INTERESTING”. So no offense to anyone......anywhere and All spelling mistakes are done intentionally :D

CHEERZ !!!!!!

ASHISH SHARMA

BATCH 2007,MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, COER,INDIA

PROMO 2008,MASTER IN AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY,SUPAERO,FRANCE.