The Wait

The Wait: Part One

It all started when a very interesting workshop on observational solar physics was declared. I registered for it, I was very excited to apply, I wrote a little SOP as well, and then they mailed me on 28th February that I am selected and should apply for the UK visa. I did. I had an appointment on the 6th of March, and there I submitted my passport. Who knew, this is going to be the pivoting event that would lead to a very interesting story in my life. No, not the workshop, not the trip to the UK, but merely the visa application is going to be the lead character in this story.

Now, we must keep in mind, that this is set in 2020. So, somewhere in China, a person has already started a drastic chain of events, that is going to stir this story inside out. On the 10th of March, my university declared that, from the next day onwards, all the employees should start working remotely and strictly not to enter the university campus. A little backstory, I have been working here, not so long that I can have a deep connection with the city and its people (I have a few, and I love them!), but long enough to get a little homesick.  So I planned around February end that I would go home during the Easter break so that I can use that almost a week-long holiday as well.

So, when we have to work form “home”, few of my colleagues went to their “homes” back in their native countries, and that was the trigger that inspired me to do so! Now, forgetting that my passport is with the UK embassy, and not with me, I preponed a ticket for the 13th of March and then immediately postponed it to 20th! Now started the first phase of the wait.

I started working from home from 11th and the difficulties faced for that is an altogether different topic of discussion (I wrote a blog about that then here). Then the Indian Government declared the travel ban on all the passengers travelling from the EU from the 18th of March, till 31st! I was hoping that I would get my passport back before that deadline, and I got it on the 19th of March (with a six months UK visa, btw :P)!! Very much in time for my ticket on the 20th and just a day late before the travel ban. So, then there is nothing much to ask or say. The next hope was the lifting of restrictions on 31st of March! :P

So, hoping that the date of lifting the travel restrictions comes just in a couple of weeks, I guess I stopped following the ban. Meanwhile, there were days when I could work and study. And that kept me sane. Then towards the end of May, I got an e-mail, that there is a possibility of travelling to India with the Vande Bharat Flight. It is a mission by the Government of India, that “rescues” stranded Indians. I was not stranded, but by then I almost had lost hope of seeing my family and friends in the near future. So, I jumped on the opportunity and filled the form. Yes, I filled these forms multiple times. If I am not wrong, I filled it 5 times at least.

Then came the even difficult part. The wait. The wait for the mail from the embassy, that there is a flight to India, and you can board it. The wait to see my family, my people. By then, the lockdown in  Norway started getting lifted off. I could go out for long walks, meet friends, go to the office and get back to normal life. I fell in love with the Scandinavian summer, I cooked and ate loads of Indian and Neo-Indian food. I was trying to keep myself sane. And I am happy to declare, that I believe, I succeeded. I did my work with lesser efficiency, I agree. But this was the waiting period.

The Hurry

My baby plants at my landlady's place

Cut to 6th of June, I got an e-mail from the German Embassy, that I have to fill a few more forms, give a ton of money and I can go home from Frankfurt. I have to book my own tickets and the eventual quarantine, but I CAN GO HOME!! So, then the rush started.

All set to fly back home.

I got an email the very next day, that I have to pay for my ticket from a shady link of “world-pay” without any pretext with a deadline, and I called the embassy to confirm. So, trusting their words, I paid for the ticket and waited for the confirmation. It came after 3 hours or so. Meanwhile, I booked a Lufthansa ticket for the journey from Oslo to Frankfurt. At the end of this “wait”, I had the ticket to Mumbai!

Then I cooked some food for the journey, packed my bags, arranged the remaining stuff nicely, talked to my guide, who has been very stable support, went to the office (after doing the infection prevention course, of course!) for some formalities, mailed the head, the co-ordinator, and, extended my rent contract with my landlady, gave my little plants to them for caring and watering, finished all the perishable food that I had, packed the long term food nicely, and finally, I was set to go!

Oslo Airport! With all its beauty, waiting for people!

I took theplas and
cake with me
for the travel

On 10th morning (7 AM), my landlady took me to the airport, bid me a goodbye and told me to keep sharing pictures, and told me that they will miss me, and I told them that I will miss them, and off I went inside the empty Oslo airport, a very unusual sight. But this was just the start of the unusual journey!

After the usual check-in and waiting, it was the only flight going out of the airport at that time (9:50 AM). It followed all the social-distancing norms, kept us one seat apart, the middle seats were always empty, they didn’t serve food (now, the importance of packed home cooked food kicks in!), one baby was always crying in the background (otherwise how can the flight survive!), and yes, the turbulence: I guess a usual Covid-19 flight. Then I had to claim my baggage (12:05) and I went on to the counter where the Vande Bharat flight was scheduled.

Frankfurt airport. All the aircrafts docked inside!

In the queue to board the
Vande Bharat flight!

Now! Firstly, Frankfurt is a huge airport. It took me a while to find those counters. Then there were a few long (read: loooong) queues for the following things: 1. Thermal check, 2.verification of documents, and submission of the declaration saying that we will complete a 14 days institutional quarantine, and if anything happens to us it is our responsibility, not Government’s, basically the standard stuff, 3. Checking in the baggage and collecting the boarding pass. Now, after this (which took approximately 3 hours, so @3:15), we were to go to the gate B43 and wait there till the boarding (5:20).  There I talked to my family and a couple of friends, and they called us in a queue yet again. For putting a stamp on one of the documents, I guess. By this time I was really exhausted! Then came the real test! Till this time, people were following the social distancing norms more or less diligently. But, when they called for boarding the flight, people started behaving in a very Indian way. The German security personnel even said that why is everyone suddenly misbehaving and not following social distancing! It was chaotic. But yes, our flight was full, as in one person on one seat, without any gaps and that actually made sense. If you are in a closed room, sitting far away from a person doesn’t ensure that you are not going to share the air they exhaled!

Inside the Vande Bharat Flight.
With a face mask and face shield!

So, at 6:20, the flight was supposed to take off. We were all inside it, our flight attendants were all in the PPE kits and we were given care packages containing dinner and breakfast boxes and some snacks, and most importantly, face shields, masks, and sanitizing pouches in it. The flight took off and everyone shouted “Vande Mataram!” There was continuous turbulence and were told to keep our seat belts on throughout the flight, repeatedly. There were kids who were scared of the roaring turbulence and were crying most of the time. So, not many could sleep in that long 8-hour flight. Then we finally landed at the Mumbai airport. It was a very emotional moment. Everyone clapped for the successful mission and I must say my eyes went misty (Maybe because of the humidity in Mumbai, maybe not!).

Inside the Mumbai airport. Faded charm!

We went out of the flight (5:15 AM IST) in a very systematic manner, following the social distancing. Then the first thing that we were told to do, was to install the Aarogya Setu app and show it to the officials that we have signed in and the app is working fine on our phones. Then there was a queue for the immigration and then started the second last phase of the wait.

The entrance of the Mumbai Airport.
All barricaded and empty, yet beautiful!

After getting our baggage, we were told to get to a counter where they would verify our destination city and will tell us the bus number for that city on a form. Keep this in mind, we have not been informed about the quarantine facility, or the manner we were going to be isolated and its whereabouts till this point. So, we went in the direction we were pointed towards the waiting area near the airport parking lot. All passengers, going to Pune, Nasik, Telangana even, and to various places in mainly Maharashtra, were sitting or standing in the small waiting area along with the Mumbai Police and bus drivers who were going to take us to the destination.

In a queue, boarding the State Transport bus.

Here came the tricky part! After a while, everyone started to get bored, desperate and irritated. At around 8:30, we, the people going to Thane were told to stand in a line near one wall and were verified on one of the lists that they had. Then we were told to get into the bus. We followed all the social distancing norms and went to the bus, which was an MH20 State Transport “Laal Dabba” (red steel-structured very basic bus, which has no facility for keeping big luggage nor was it AC.) We kept our luggage on the back seats and in the aisle and took seats. We had to pay for our tickets (Rs. 300) via cards and it took around 1 hour in that process. But thankfully we left immediately from the airport!

But! We had one of us as our leader and he got a call from the police at the airport that we had to go back because we had forgotten the list and one of our co-passengers. So, our beloved driver started to take a reverse on the bridge, where other vehicles were going in the forward direction at the speed of 80-100 kmph! When we reached the point where it is one way out of the airport, a security guard came and stopped us and we had to go all the way around the bridge and finally, we were inside the airport again! And, the lady, who was left, was taken by a police vehicle to the same point on the bridge where we told that we had to go back to the airport. So we waited again for the buses in the front to move so that we could pass and went again to the same bridge and got that lady on board. Off we went to Thane (9:45).

Nobody, not the driver, not the police officer who was calling our leader, not any other authorities, apparently knew, where we were supposed to go. So, We were headed in the direction to Thane, without a destination. While going, we got a call from another officer saying that there are arrangements done for us in a hotel in Vashi, and we had to pay a ton of money (yet again!). Thanks to our leaders, and their awareness about the owners and political connections of those owners, we got out of that trap and we were heading to the district collector’s office in Thane, to discuss the exact procedure for quarantine. Many of us could have stayed home in an isolated room or an isolated house nearby, only 7 out of 22 people were in need of the institutional quarantine because of the situation at home. His assistant/guard (I was not in a position to understand and/or remember) said that the Collector will be arriving by 11, so the wait started, yet again (10:20).

The view from the quarantine hotel. Silver-lining!

This is how we are
given the pre-plated food

Around 11:30 or so, one of our leaders called collector or his assistant, I am not sure because I had no physical or mental strength to comprehend anything anymore. It was decided that we should check out nearby hotels in Thane and if we are not happy with that choice, the bus will take us to Vashi. The first hotel that we came to, took us to a nearby apartment complex, saying that once used for quarantining people from abroad, the hotel will be needed to be sanitized and that would cost a fortune, whereas the service apartments are isolated. The apartments seemed up to the mark. 6 of us took these apartments as our quarantine-homes (1:30 PM), and the rest went away to see the next facility.

The Wait: Part Two

"Good food"

If by now, you think that the wait is over, no! Wait for it. On the very next day, At around 3 PM, the electricity went off due to some failure and a little fire (hear-say). So, in the night, at 9:30-ish, we were shifted to the hotel, where we thought we were originally be quarantined. We were told to pack important stuff and take clothes and essentials for spending just the night, and we walked with the masks in the rain to the hotel (just a couple of hundred meters.) It’s the third day of quarantining in the hotel now. We have been checked for our temperatures, we are fed really good food, and we can walk inside the hotel, but cannot leave the hotel premises.

So, now the last phase of the wait is going on. They say, after 7 days of quarantine, we will be tested for COVID-19, and when we will get our test results to be negative, we will be given a certificate of completion of the quarantine along with our passports. (Oh! I forgot to mention! Our passports are with the hotel authorities. So that no one of us runs away! And they took it while the registration was going on and then it started raining and our passports might have gotten wet in the process.)

When we could meet 

I know, to the core, that these are unusual circumstances and everything is unpredictable and unknown. I know this is the best that could have happened to me during this time. I know many many working hands are required to function properly to get all of us here. I am genuinely thankful for this amazing opportunity to get home with this first-hand "Airlift" experience. And I know that I am still amazed and not able to believe that I am in my city - Thane, and actually seeing my parents!

Yes! I can see my family, with masks, from a distance of 1.5m and only for 15 minutes. I got some Alphonso mangoes to eat and books to read! And definitely, I have my ever-exciting work as my companion! Needless to say, the constant solid support of my parents and close friends was, is and will be my oxygen. But yes! After this, I will have to do a home quarantine for at least a week and then I will be able to see my family and friends. So, the wait is still going on.