Just imagine going to a little known country for a 10 day meeting and being told that it is not possible to confirm your return flight as it is severely over booked. This was my fate when I visited Madagascar way back in the 1980’s until the High Commissioner for India in Madagascar came to my rescue.
Madagascar is a country hardly known to most Sri lankans. I was therefore thrilled when I received an invitation to deliver a review lecture at a symposium in Madagascar. My sponsor the International Foundation for Science (Sweden) sent me a pre-paid ticket to fly through a long winding route: Colombo-Paris on Air Lanka and then Paris-Antannanarivo on Air Madagascar. At the time I emplaned in Colombo only my onward sectors were confirmed but was assured by the ticketing agent that the return flights would be confirmed during my stay of 10 days there. On reaching Madagascar it was a different story. Air Madagascar is actually a code sharing flight of Air France and there was only one flight a week. They waitlisted me for my return journey but told that my chances of getting a seat are very slim as there is a long waiting list.
Midway during the meeting we had a very distinguished visitor Dr. M. S. Swaminathan the Director-General of the International Rice Research Institute who arrived to open a new IRRI outreach research station in Madagascar. There was a reception for him and the few foreign participants (including me) were also lined up to be introduced as special guests. The introductions were done by the Indian High Commissioner in Madagascar. When it came to my turn Dr. Swaminathan was delightfully surprised and exclaimed “How are you Dr.Kulasooriya, what a strange place to meet?” Then he turned around and introduced me to the High Commissioner. We have known each other for many years from my IRRI days in the 1970’s.
The next day I received an invitation from the Indian High Commissioner to join him at his residence for a lunch given in honor of Dr. Swaminathan. It so happened that the High Commissioner Mr. Sinha had been the 1st Secretary at the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka until April that year. He had got a promotion and moved to Madagascar just two months ago. While the rice was being served he remarked “We are serving you very special Basmathi rice imported from Pakistan and bought in Sri Lanka".
As Dr. Swaminathan had a tight schedule he left just after lunch but the High Commissioner persuaded me to stay behind and have a chat.
From the day I have arrived in Madagascar I noticed that most of the leading businesses are owned and/or controlled by wealthy Indian families. Even the hotel we were staying belonged to one such family. Ironically many of these Indians were highly westernized spoke French and English fluently, even the ladies wore blue jeans and smoked and drank heavily. As a matter of conversation I broached this subject to the High Commissioner. He fully agreed with my observations and remarked that these are the “most non-Indian Indians in the world”. He said they have migrated several years, perhaps centuries ago from the westernized areas of India such as Pondicherry and Goa and some of them may have never even visited India. Most of them are very rich and have a strong control over the economy of Madagascar. Having enjoyed the sumptuous lunch and the pleasant company as I was about to leave, the High Commissioner asked whether there was anything he could do for me. Even after five days in Madagascar my return flight to Paris had not been confirmed and the travel agent had been quite pessimistic about getting a seat. I told my difficulty to the High Commissioner. He asked me to give my ticket and passport to the officer accompanying me back to the hotel and with utmost confidence said “Consider it done”. I was thoroughly relieved because we were moving out of Antannanarivo to a different city the next day to continue the meeting and were due to return only the day before my departure.
On the third day of the meeting at the new location my ticket with the seat confirmed was brought by a special envoy from the Indian High Commission. Handing over the documents to me he remarked “You must be a very close friend of our High Commissioner. We got a confirmed passenger off loaded to get this seat for you”. I replied “Please convey my most grateful thanks to your High Commissioner. If not for him I would have been marooned in Madagascar”.
