It’s been almost two months since I have been in Johannesburg, South Africa for an onsite assignment from my organization. I distinctly remember the day I left Bangalore for Joberg. As I was cruising through Mekhri circle in Bangalore for catching an early morning flight to airport, I saw a big hoarding of South African tourism with a picture of ‘Cheetah’ on top of a catching tagline which says - “Its possible!!”.I along with my 2 office colleagues boarded an Emirates flight for Joberg with a brief stop at Dubai.
We reached Johannesburg at night the same day after traveling for a gruesome 15 hours on flight. By the time we landed I was already down with 5 pint of Beers and 4-5 movies. It was there I catch hold of “Hurt Locker” which later went on to win Oscar for Best Picture. I still can’t believe a lady has directed (no offense btw) such a hard-hitting and raw war movie. I came out of the terminal to find Mercedes E-Class waiting for us to take us to our Lodge. By the time I left Airport any preconceived notion of Joberg or for that matter Africa, I had in my mind had vanished. Our accommodation and office was at Sandton - a suburb of Johannesburg which is called Africa’s Richest Mile.
It took me around few more days to realize how Joberg was different from any other place in India. I was already aware of warnings and precautions to be taken care while moving around Joberg. But somehow you don’t pay heed to those things unless you yourself are in that place. There is certainly no public transport over their and I find very less people moving around by walk. Coming from a country like India, where people do all kind of nuisance on Roads let alone walking, this was kind a difficult to digest. Inspite of this there is certainly some kind of mystery around Africa which is very captivating and difficult to ignore.
Sher k baju mein sher wali snap !!
Well..when it comes to africa..territory is well defined !
Fifa-2010..surely once in a lifetime !!
In Africa..people do bargain !!
By the time first month finished, I had already visited Sun City (An Amusement Theme Park), Pilanesberg National Park, Rhino and Lion Park, Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton City Mall and an amazing Casino cum theatre called Montecasino. Seeing Lions on roads just passing by our vehicle in National Park is something which I will remember for a very very long time. Apart from that, playing with lion cubs in Lion Park though was a bit scary but an amazing experience. What excited me the most was there were World Cup countdown timer placed across every nook and corner of the city telling how much time is left for the greatest extravaganza on earth. No wonder FIFA World Cup would easily be the single biggest event happening in South Africa (or for that matter Africa) after it got freedom in 1991.One amazing part of being in Africa is all the La Liga matches which doesn’t comes in India on TV ,do comes here and that too at a very respectable time. Watching Messi scored 4 goals against Arsenal in Champions League Semifinal while sitting in an Irish Pub amongst 100 odd people certainly bought back memory of CCFC, Kolkata. Being there made me realize ,this World Cup is much bigger of an event for Blacks as compared to white, who still considers Rugby as their main sport. One thing which I found very nice was, every Friday around 60-70 % of the people of all age group wore Bafana Bafana(name of South African Soccer Team) Jersey while coming to office. This tells a lot about the kind of love they have about the sports and how much this World Cup means to them. I somehow can’t see all this stuffs happening in India during Cricket World Cup let alone Football.
As the time pass by we visited another theme park called Gold Reef City which is built on top of a famous Gold Mine. Some of the rides on the park were just exhilarating and very scary. We first tried all the rides with Fear factor 9-10 and believe me there were some serious cracks at my posterior (It’s just a metaphor btw) after some of them. I went to Sun City again for water rides few weeks later which I had missed when I visited first time.
I know I have been quite optimistic in writing about my 2 month stay Africa in 2-3 pages and it’s just my apathetic indolence which has to be blamed. I was rather more vocal about my experiences in Micro-blogs (Twitter) which rather has cozy 140 characters as a limit. At last all I can say is this has been a memorable vacation cum business trip for me which I will surely remember for long time to come. Still there are many many places to explore in South Africa let alone Africa as a continent that I wish to cover in coming days.
P.S: This post was published after Abhishek returned to Bangalore few weeks later. He told it happened due to some serious procrastination issues that he is suffering since childhood. People who have met the author even once will affirm this completely.
Last I heard him telling, photos will be uploaded pretty soon...Believe me !!
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