Tuesday, April 27, 2021

OUR GREAT ESCAPE

I am 76 and my wife is 73. Our daughter is in New Jersey, USA, and our son is in Hyderabad, India. We have so far gone to the US four times in 2013, 2015, 2018, and 2019. Every time, we stayed there for 6 months as permitted for tourists.

We booked the tickets well in advance so that we got the lowest rate. We planned to stay only for 175 days to avoid any problem with the immigration officials for overstay. So the departure from India and from the US was decided well in advance.

During our last visit in 2019, we wanted to experience and enjoy the winter in the US covering Dec to Feb. So after a lot of deliberations, we planned to depart from India on 16th Sept 2019 and to return to India on 10th March 2020 without knowing what is going to happen.

On the day of our return from the US, ie on 9th March 2020, due to some delay, we arrived two hours before the departure of the flight instead of the stipulated 3 hours. Air India had preponed the departure by 2 hours and their intimation by email was not noticed by us. Hence the mistake was on our part.

To our shock and surprise, Air India told us that boarding was completed and the plane was about to depart. We were shell-shocked and clueless. My daughter with great difficulty explained to the authorities and got their permission for our boarding but the luggage would come by the next flight.

We landed safely in Hyderabad on 10th March 2021 and our luggage was delivered the next day. Mind you, if we did not get the boarding on that flight, we would not be able to return to India since the corona I wave had started and all subsequent flights were cancelled from 10th March.

Since the day of our arrival on 10th March 2020, we are under house arrest for 15 months to date, and we do not go out fearing infection. Being senior citizens, we must act responsibly and should not make our son suffer and incur expenses in lakhs if we are hospitalized. 

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