The terminal

How 19 Indians stranded in the Dubai airport are coping with the Covid-19 gloom

- CITHARA PAUL

IT WAS HIS 36TH DAY of being stranded in the Dubai International Airport and Deepak Gupta, understandably, was miserable. “I have not seen the sun or breathed fresh air for more than a month,” he told THE WEEK. “I am stuck. Can you imagine such a life?”

Gupta landed in Dubai on March 18, the day India decided to stop the entry of Indians coming from Europe. He was told that he could not fly to India when he was preparing to check-in. “I am yet to overcome that shock,” said Gupta, who has been living in the airport since.

A resident of Delhi’s Uttam Nagar, he had gone to Budapest on an official assignment a month earlier. As Covid-19 began to spread worldwide, his employer, a Gurugram-based multinational company, called him back. As he left Budapest to catch an Emirates flight from Dubai to Delhi, little did he know that he would spend the next few weeks in an airport.

“I had no idea about the ban on passengers coming from Europe when I boarded the flight from Budapest,” said Gupta. “My wife is pregnant, and I was counting the hours before I could be with her. Now I really don’t know when I will be able to see her.”

Apart from Gupta, 18 other Indians have been stranded in the airport. They had all landed in Dubai on or after March 18, from different parts of the globe. According to India’s ministry of external affairs, five of them are from Kerala, four from Gujarat, three from Punjab, two from Maharashtra and one each from Delhi, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka.

Most of them had no clue about the ban when they started their journeys. After banning inbound passengers from Europe, India extended the ban to include all international flights on March 22.