Doing Angels Work!

Renato Pellicioli - President Asssociazione "Ron Luyou" and Angeliebimbi.
Photo: Dr C Thangsing

April 26 2006: When I check out the Yunan Hotel, Shanghai I was oblivious of the fact that an active session of interesting events were going to unfold that challenges your wits, patience, reaction and of course your endurance to silly redtapes and a taste of bureaucracy and immigration rules and systems and of how friendship and a strong bond of comradeship can be generated, nurtured and put to work immediately.

I arrived over an hour too early as the Alitalia counter as indicated by the TV screen hasn't even have their signs post yet. The airport is clean quite big and wide as yet another International Airport should be and of course nothing to make the Shanghai airport extraordinary, of course one cannot but help notice the himalayan difference with our Desi Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. I was one of the few who decided to form the queue early up instead of going and moving around in circles trying to create moments of interest in the usual shops and looked at unnessary details of flights other than your own. Well, finally a staff can holding five boards of the Alitalia airline insigna and started hanging them up and three beautiful chinese staff took to their positions at the couter and the usual routine of checking in begin with immediate earnest. I had plans of moving in through the security and take a well earned rest at the airport but that was not to be. I was greeted with a beautiful smile and I gave them my passport and tickets but the face of the clerk turning serious was a surprise and I was all the more surprise when she stood up and said that I couldnt fly today. I was widemouth with unbelief. My Visa will be effective 27th April 2006 and my flight landed on the 26th April 2006 at 10:45 pm which is about an hour and a quarter early and I cannot land on the Netherlands soil that early. I am sorry, you cannot board she said as her senior came over and I moved off the line to let the many other passengers passed through the checkin. I was then told that there were no seats available for the next day too. But, a few calls and many calls to their reservations yeild fruit as I was finally issued a boarding pass till Milan and I will have to check in with the airlines again in Italy. Whew! that was quite a mental exercise.

It was a relief for I was in an aisle and in a two seater row. Soon, the tense muscles,thoughts, stress, and heat generated began to vaporised and I soon settle down comforably when this gentleman walk in and take the window seat. Tiredness seeps in and I was soon drowning in a successive interval of dozing, awake,a little sleep in that pattern. It was over an hours flight when I was alert to the surroundings and the stewards and other airline cabin crew began serving us food. I introduced myself to the gentleman my neighbour and soon we were engage in intense coversation sharing about our work which was similar in many ways for it was both humanitarian - about caring, kindness, and expressing compassion to the less fortunate or the underserve or unserve. Renato is returning home from a visit to the orphans and children in China which his company help and adopts. We soon were sharing so much of our work that we rested just when its about just over an hour before the pilots announce that we soon would be landing in Milan International Airport.

I had this exercise ahead of me, the transit area, line or the immigration line, or ??? collect my luggage or not or could it be sent to Amsterdam ahead? Will I need to buy a ned tickets or will the one I posses do or will it be change, or can I actually be allowed to board for Amsterdam to wait out for an hour at Schiphol - so many questions race through my mind when Renato - who has to catch his connecting flight for his home in Venice; decided to walk me to the Alitalia and be helpful. That was a great gesture, a kind, understanding gesture of concern, comradeship, friendship which put you so much at ease and thats - a nice feeling.

I am grateful to Renato for the time he spared to do that for that was priceless -
Renato my Italian friend may your tribe increase!!!

Note: I am in contact with Renato and he and his organisation will be helping out with the care and adopt an AIDS orphan or HIV/AIDS infected children in India especially the NE India. Shortly - and I am sure he and his other angels will help make the lives of many other children better in the the Asia and Pacitic region.