Cherished Memories of Africa — Page 150
132 It was about 12 midnight, only a few airline offices were open. We spoke to Air Portugal but they would not listen and continued to blame us for the error. We tried our best but in vain. We continued to remonstrate with them till late in the night but they refused to relent. Those moments were very distressing. As I had organised the programme and made all arrangements, I was greatly perturbed. If the delegation could not make it to Germany for Jalsa, in addition to financial loss to the jama’at, it would cause Huzur a great distress, all because of my fault, I thought. Everyone was worried, but only I could know the agony that I was in. Devastated by the situation, I went aside to a solitary place and burst into tears over my helplessness and implored Allah, the Almighty humbly and earnestly, ‘O Allah, You are solver of problems, deliver me from this misery’. That had soothing effect on me. I went back to the office of Air Portugal and told them that: • “The error was made by your office and not by us because when we purchased the tickets from your Dakar office, we did enquire about the visa requirement and were told that we did not need one; you can confirm that with the person concerned at the Dakar office. • The officer in-charge checked the documents before permit - ting us to board. If the documents were not in order, we should have been stopped there. Thus you cannot blame us for the error and the fault lies with your office and your air - line staff is responsible for creating all that problem and if repatriated you will be responsible for the consequences. • The passengers are Members of Parliament and going to take part in an important meeting. You will be held responsi - ble for their non-attendance and compensation for failure of