Homecoming in pandemic times

It’s almost two years since I came back to Kolkata, but it hardly seemed like it once I saw Joydeb at the airport and came back to a flat which looked as if I had never left it. But in many senses travelling home in the pandemic is anything but as usual. Its fraught with tension, the tension of pcr tests and not knowing what the result could be or when it would appear in my Inbox, uploading the documents on time which is also dependent on booking it on time, booking yet another pcr test at arrival in Delhi and hanging around for the result with your heart in your mouth in case it is positive with the loudspeaker constantly reminding you that positive cases would be ‘removed’ to a government facility and so forth. 

 

Travelling in pandemic times: intimations of mortality and longings

My annual return to the land of my birth in wintertime has been on hold the past two years. Deep long winters in Europe with short days and not enough light were made worse by the fact that the pandemic raged, and we had to avoid contact. I was not going to spend another Christmas, a family affair in Germany, under pandemic conditions. Luckily last year at Christmas I had my friend Madhushree for company. We had to keep ourselves amused because we were uninvited to the customary Christmas eve dinner at a friend’s which I have attended as long as I can remember during my two and a half decade long stay in Germany. The uninvite was not impolite nor could one take offence as would have happened in pre-covid times (it wouldn’t have happened in pre-covid times) although this did not prevent me from feeling bad and being close to tears. No risks could be taken; the government had set a new rule that we could only invite a limited number, one couple at the most, whose contact history we were aware of. Our relationships had long become a mine field of dos and donts.

 

In August 2021 as I entered the decade that will bring me closer to the end, the heightened consciousness of my mortality and longing for the familiar made me decide that come what may I was going to travel to India. First step, buy a ticket. With KLM that is easier said than done as their website is not always the most customer friendly and their phones are always busy which is their way of ensuring that they minimise on ground staff and save on costs. Since I could not use the ticket to Los Angeles for June 2020 because of the pandemic, I had a credit coupon from KLM. Nevertheless, the ticket to Delhi seemed a relatively higher price than what I had imagined I had paid in 2019. But then in the intervening two years a lot had changed including the price of air travel. Aviation fuel along with all other fuels pumped with abandon out of the earth to fuel economic growth had grown exorbitantly expensive. The economic inactivity in 2020 meant less oil consumption overall, less greenhouse gas emissions so that one could actually see the sky in Delhi as reported by my friends. Now in 2021 with high energy consuming economic growth back in full throttle the oil producing countries decided now was the time to make more millions (as if they didn’t have enough) and restricted the amount of oil produced and available in the market. The knock-on effect meant that consumers paid more not just for air travel, which is not a bad thing, but for everything.

 

I did not know what to expect from international travel because all the rules had changed. The tension of not knowing started soon after I bought the ticket which was way back in August whereas my flight was mid-December 2021. Somebody wisely advised that I wait till the government of India notification for international travel the week I was to travel, but this just suspended the tension. Finally as the date of travel approached a friend looked up the Indian embassy website; a pcr test result would do for entry. But the virus does not stand still leaving us in a perpetual state of unpredictability. Sure enough with the world fast running out of Greek letters to name a new variant, one was identified in November 2021 and named omicron. By the time I travelled Europe or rather the countries I would visit before my travel, Germany and the Netherlands, had higher incidence rates compared to India, in fact much higher. So in a geopolitical role reversal the rules for entry to India for those travelling from Europe became draconian. Luckily my friend Jashodhara sent me the government website which clarified what to expect; besides the mandatory pcr tests before travel was added a pcr test on arrival and quarantine for seven days for those with negative results.

 

Knowing the rules didn’t end the misery of uncertainty. The constant provocation by earnest friends from India giving me what they thought were the new rules for entry kept the tension alive. One such was the ominous message that the period of quarantine was now two weeks! I frantically looked up the website, read the instructions several times and then resigned myself to my fate. Another dire warning was about the pcr test which had to be not earlier than 72 hours before arrival. As this was a phone call we got into a terrible mess counting what 72 hours constituted. Although I knew for certain that if I was tested on Tuesday I was okay for arrival Thursday night early Friday, after this conversation I was no longer sure. 

 

Travelling in pandemic times: nothing is predictable

The tension started for real the week I was travelling. One has to understand that I am no stranger to travel. I travelled internationally for work every two months for twenty years and weekly across a national border to be with my husband. So when I say that packing, which for me was a weekly exercise pre-covid, now seemed filled with indecision and worry is to say that the pandemic has changed me in fundamental ways. I have lost courage. Then the dither about the pcr test – should I have it in Germany where I was or in Amsterdam from where I was to fly. The decision was made on the advice of a friend who had recently travelled to Canada; I had it at a small airport near where I live in Germany. Having booked the test and appeared at the test centre early I found the young woman at the reception to be somewhat clueless and so although I made sure she had noted my mail address to mail me the results, doubts about her competence niggled in my mind. 

 

Then the day before my departure I started final preparations in Amsterdam. I tried to get a boarding pass for the flight because the KLM site said I could but when I tried the algorithm kept saying the same thing: it is not possible to issue a boarding card at this time. You couldn’t ask the algorithm questions and were left with a feeling of uncertainty.  Then was the GOI (Government of India) application for entry to India. I had worried about it so long that when I started filling it I kept misreading the instructions and had to ring Jashodhara (holidaying in Goa) to take a look! The pcr test result had not come and so the form remained incomplete. When by late afternoon in Amsterdam the pcr test didn’t appear miraculously in my Inbox my doubts about the woman at the test centre reception seemed to have come true; she messed it up I thought. Frantic phone calls to my friend in Germany who was travelling back after having dropped me in Amsterdam; she agreed to physically go to the test centre! Her arrival and the ping in my Inbox coincided. In my state of mind I couldn’t find the passport number on the document; Monika assured me from the other end that it was there in the certificate as I sent her the mail. This was followed by two hours of form filling, uploading several documents besides the pcr test result (which involved scanning them) and phew I was done! The GOI website for travellers was uncharacteristically friendly; it had lived up to its name Air Suvidha (convenient).

 

The reason why they don’t issue boarding passes before hand is because now in addition to everything else, they have to check the extra covid related documents. First hurdle was that the person at the KLM check-in counter refused to check me in because I didn’t have the stipulated QR code on the GOI document. My heartbeat went up and my cold hands grew colder. I began explaining that I had registered at the GOI portal and they had not sent me a QR code. Finally on the verge of refusing to check me in she asked whether I had used the GOI Air Suvidha portal the print-out of which I had been waving at her. But during these pandemic times everybody is in a permanent state of panic; she like me earlier was unable to read the document straight for fear of doing something incorrect. That’s another momentous change in our behaviour; it’s made us rule and procedure bound which one expects from a KLM operative, but unfortunately it has also pervaded our interactions. The relief of passing all the hurdles made me euphoric and I retreated to the Business class lounge (my ticket was upgraded) to have a well-earned breakfast. The euphoria lasted all the way through the flight as I sipped champagne, watched movies and sat in splendid isolation as the next seat was unoccupied.

 

My experience at Delhi airport in contrast was something of an anti-climax. After a week of frenetic activity and tension made worse by the expectation of mismanagement and impolite bureaucratic treatment on arrival everything that followed was easier. As we came into the airport there were banks of tables with computers and people behind them. There was no rush and passengers could easily access these desks. As I pushed forward in full anticipation of chaos, the guy behind the counter I had approached asked for my passport number. I kept waving the 6-page print out of the Air Suvidha application form but he didn’t seem interested, saying half in Hindi and half English that it would be okay. You have to pay for the pcr test, he said. Why I asked waving the payment receipt at him and ready to do battle. He coolly gave me the sealed packet and told me to wait my turn at the cordoned off area where swabs were being taken. No queue and swabs taken in a jiffy. Now the waiting. 

 

There were two different prices for the tests based not I hope on the quality but the waiting time for results. My waiting time for the class divided test was up to 90 minutes and the others who would pay less 7 hours! So I found a seat and waited. I befriended a young man who was also waiting and asked him to let me know when he was about to approach the counter for results. I read to keep from constantly checking the time and listening to the disturbing pre-recorded message warning of dire consequences in case a positive pcr test result replayed every 15 minutes. And then after 45 minutes the young man said I think the results are ready. Did I have to go back to the guy who registered me? No, he said, any desk. I approached the first free one my heart suddenly thumping, passport number needed and within seconds the young woman behind the counter gave me the thumbs up sign and printed out the test result.

 

The tests are done by a private laboratory and not by government bureaucrats. The next step was getting the test result authorised for entry which a government officer on duty. And here you met the paranoid security state. Lining both sides of the aisle leading to the first desk were police personnel. On approaching the desk the guy looked at the test result and stamped the boarding pass with red ink. All well, end of story. Not really. Since the security state is built on the premise that everybody is a security risk until proven otherwise it has to police people to fall in line. There were more police personnel than passengers at this stage lining both sides of the aisle as passengers walked through. Second check point, another desk and another check. The police personnel on both sides were checking anyway. At the final check, not knowing it to be the final, I lost it. It was 2.30 am after an 8-hour flight and we were being subjected to rituals that made no sense. With a voice dripping with sarcasm (my husband called it my Indian upper-class act!), I gave all the documents I had in my hand to the police officer saying you choose. She juggled the papers, found the boarding pass and said in an embarrassed tone, it’s okay. I followed the same ritual with her companion who quickly raised her hand in a gesture part embarrassed part you can go. 

 

Completely confused by now I asked the immigration officer what papers he wanted. He replied very patiently for 2.30 am, your passport madam and OCI card (Overseas Citizen of India card allows us entry without a visa to live and work in the country for as long as we like). Stamped and done very quickly. On to the luggage and then out. I was in Delhi! A minor problem was I had asked my cousin who luckily was in town that week to pick me up after 3.30 am anticipating long waits at the testing place. But it was just passed 2.45 am. I phoned him and he was on his way. It would be 30 minutes at least before he could get to the airport. It was cold, about 6 degrees. I put all my European layers on again and waited stoically. 

 

What is homecoming

I know blood relations can be a pain and that we have much more in common with our friends whom we choose but if you are like me living most of the year without any kin to remind you about this and that from your childhood or their childhood of which you were a part, then one pines for belongingness. And that’s how I felt as my cousin, decades younger than me, greeted me with hallo Didibhai (a term of endearment for elder sister). I no longer had to manage my luggage or find a taxi or worry about where to stay; I was looked after. And then at home I met my aunt my only surviving relative from my mother’s generation who had turned 80 (ten years older than me with the same date of birth) and it felt like coming home. 

 

Two days later after cancelling my reservation three times because I couldn’t get an aisle seat (my covid precautions) I arrived in Kolkata, was picked up by Joydeb and spent my first night after two years in my own flat in Kolkata among many decades of memories. This was closest to homecoming I have experienced in a long while.