Traveling to Israel can be a real test of one’s patience. At the El-Al counter in Mumbai airport, we had to spend about 1.5 hours being interviewed by the security officers before proceeding to the check-in counter. Questions were long, probing and at times, frustrating. There were four of us traveling together, and each was separately subjected to this process. One was asked to open his laptop to show Minutes of the meeting and emails detailing the work-plan during our visit here. Another’ s suitcase was opened and checked. I was asked (among other things) to describe the functionality of and the technology of the software system I am responsible for building. However, it must be said that they were very courteous and even-handed. Every other passenger was subjected to the same process, albeit to varying degrees of extensiveness. All the security personnel were fluent in English, Marathi, Hindi and well, Hebrew! I of course understand that this is a job for them, and there are good reasons why so hawk-eyed they have to be. After all, theirs is the safest airlines in the world. I have read that after the infamous 9/11 episode, Israelis analyzed the moves made by hijackers of the flights. They came to a conclusion that there would be no way this could have happened with an El-Al flight in Israel. The elaborate security steps would have ensured that.

At the Tel-Aviv Yafo airport (named after David Ben Gurion, the first PM of Israel), the situation was – somewhat unexpectedly – much simpler. The people holding Israeli passports had a separate (and very fast moving) queue, for themselves. We the people from other nations – there was quite a number of them that early morning – were questioned by young Israeli Immigration officers sitting inside the kiosks. There were a reasonably big number of kiosks and that helped matters. I was asked a very few questions – mostly routine – and was allowed into the Holy Land by the strikingly beautiful lady at the kiosk. At early morning 3:00, officials at the taxi queue were diligently helping people into taxis. Almost all of them were Skoda Octavia and white coloured. The road to Tel Aviv was a 4-lane highway, and after some distance, it met the road that links Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The road journey to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv is of about an hour (later I came to know that they are putting a fast railway track to cut down the duration of journey between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to 20 minutes!). The driver took some time to figure out where exactly where we wanted to go, because the road where our hotel stood was wrongly spelt. Later, he began speaking about Hindi movies, and we were taken a little aback when he confessed that his favourite hero was ‘Mithun Chakraborty’! Two of my colleagues – for them it was the their first trip abroad – marveled at traffic discipline observed by the drivers, as ours waited patiently at a signal when absolutely nothing could be seen to be moving around the whole crossing at 4:30 am. In Pune, this would have been almost sacrilegious and the driver’s competence could have been brought into serious question.

Our workplace is in a tri-towered building complex called the ‘Azrieli Towers’. One of the buildings is triangular in shape, the second rectangular and the third circular, all standing beside each other. The circular building houses the office. As a result, the main corridor is circular too. If you begin to walk from the reception in one direction, you come back there. Interiors are stylishly done. Rooms are big, and airy. However, finding the big meeting room free is a battle that everyone is ready to fight. So far, Ita (our PM) lost two such battles, and we had to walk to the other Playtech office in the rectangular building. There was only one room free for us, and that happened to be the room to be used as a shelter during a chemical warfare! It was indicative – I thought – because our project has all the ingredients of becoming a serious warfare. The team comprises of two from Estonia, two from Israel, two from Bulgaria and four from India. Everyone speaks English, but the conversation is a veritable mélange of many different accents! That makes it livelier, than it should have been, I think.

Three of my colleagues from Pune are accompanying me. For Prashant and Ashadh, it is the first trip abroad. Prashant is excited to the hilt and understandably so. He has already taken an unpublished number of photographs on his bluetooth-enabled cell-phone. The photos he took include those of the office building, the road crossing, the cars, colleagues in the coffee shop and who knows what else. In fact, today morning he bent his body to an impossible angle to take a snap of the road surface! Many passers-by looked at him with curiosity and perhaps, suspicion. Every evening he is making a plan to visit the beach (15 minutes walk from where we stay), but so far has not managed to be in there. Ashadh has become quite a eminent person here, with the name ‘The Indian who does not speak’! During the two day-long sessions on Monday and Tuesday, he managed to say zero words! I have made a serious request to him to share with me the secret of such determined silence for over 15 hours. So far, he has responded in that famous monosyllabic grunt of his … ‘hmmmpph’ with a smirk on his lips. Sajit is cool in his reaction to the place (he has stayed in US before). Without any hesitations, he has taken over the responsibility of noting down minutes of the meetings and also, serving the beer in the evening. So far, he has done extremely well on both the fronts. He has a little trouble in knowing what is he buying though, because all the prices are written in Hebrew! So, he is going either by the picture on the packets, colour, the smell, the shapes or by plain faith that he is spotting the right thing to purchase. I have to say that till now his success rate has been impressive.

A trip to Jerusalem is planned on Friday. Sumita (my wife) has sent useful links. Ita too. And, of course, Santosh’s Lonely Planet is proving eminently useful. The place I have read about since my childhood, and imagined things about. Hopefully, the trip will be as memorable as ever.

Till then, Shalom!