Vodafone Egypt Migration.

I was working with a product called uOne with Rajesh Roy. I and Rajesh were working on a migration tool which could migrate user data to LDAP and IMAP. One day he called me to a meeting room where we were joined with our Project Manager Asit Mishra. They explained me about the migration process and that there is a migration going to happen in Egypt for Vodafone. They said it was one prestigious migration for India because this could fetch us lot more migration. I was happy to hear about it, but was also wondering why they are telling me all this and that too to me alone. Then Asit said we are planning to send you along with Rajesh for this migration. I was happy and said ok. Now they both of them started to explain lot of things and asked me about my convenience in travelling and all the regular stuff. Everything went well. At this time, Rajesh asked me if my Passport is in Bangalore or if it is at my home. To this I said “I do not have a passport”. It was not there in the wildest dreams of both of them that they were talking to a person for so long who do not have a passport. I could see the facial expression of both those people who were talking to me for so long about the assignment. To which I continued, “But I could make one”.

I went back to Alappuzha taking leave for a week’s time and applied for passport in Tatkal and brought it in a week’s time. My passport was sent for visa stamping and got it stamped.

This was my first ever travel in a flight. I along with Rajesh got a flight to Bombay. From there we need to catch a flight to Dubai and to Dubai to Cairo, the final destination. We reached Mumbai Domestic Airport. We collected all our baggage and went to the International airport. The airport is an old one, which looked more like a bus stand.

We were standing in the queue and when it reached Rajesh’s turn they said, your “immigration clearance not required” is not crossed in the passport so you need to do that before going. There it was a situation and I thought we of coming out of the queue. All of a sudden, Rajesh Said, “ Alright, I will do this and follow you later, You carry on.” I was surprised, I know only half of the tool the rest of the half is managed by Rajesh, what if he does not come? . But he looked very confident. I got the flight. And reached Dubai and from there to Cairo. Customs checked all my bag and once I came out, there was a person standing with a placard with my name. I reached him, and said that I am Jomon from Logica. This man was in his fifties. He said, “ My neme iss Abedulle, I em uor darivar”. I said, “Alright you take me to the hotel now”. To which he continued, “Uorr Boss want me tu teke you tu offece”. I did not knew who my boss is there, all these information is with Rajesh. I did not wanted to argue, I noded my head and sat inside the car. He took me to Egypt’s Telecom center. It is around 50 acers of land with a building in the center. All the four walls around the compound was 15 feet tall and there were Soldiers with gun near the gate and on the watch towers. I met a person called Khaliq. He was the delivery manager of the project. I found one more person called David. There was nothing much to do that day, But the biggest stone thrown on my head was also on the same day. Rajesh called me over the phone, which was given to me from office and said that he is not coming. And he is going back to Bangalore and help me from Bangalore.

Another challenge was that there was no internet connection. The only way to talk was to make phone call. We kept on calling I Rajesh and Govind Pande from US. For Govind also it was a challenging project because it was he who decided to give the migration to Indian engineers. My phone bill was 40’000 rupees when I came back. Hureen, the admin manager called Rajesh and asked if he really need this phone.

I was there in Egypt for 33 days most of the days Rajesh stayed back in office till 12.00 am. and sometimes 1:00 am to help me. The migration was completed successfully and I came back. It was a great experience in my life. There were times when I stayed awake for 38 hours when the migration was happening. There were many issues in between but nothing bothered us, mean time I also mastered Rajesh’s part of migration, with his help and did that also.