Rising above the regret

The year 2022 was slowly rolling toward its end, when I decided to go home from China to India. I had survived the Covid-19 pandemic in China in 2020. After three years, the homecoming call was too difficult to ignore.

The first episode - Rising above the regret - is all about planning and preparation. But I did not know at that time the journey would be adorned with too many ups and downs, and eventually become a lifetime experience for me.

How it all started

The time was the end of 2022. The last time I went home was in November 2019, and came back to China on January 6th, 2020. Almost three years have passed in between. The pandemic arrived and went (or faded at the time of this writing), and like for many, it has left deep impression on me. I had lost communication between my birth and work places. Over time, the situation has improved all over the world. But the situation between India and China has not improved, rather deteriorated. I do not know who is right and who is wrong, or if it can be characterized as simple black and white. I simply know that the political situation between the neighbors took away some precious moments from my life, and that will remain as a lifelong regret.

In second week of October 2022, I decided to go home. Durga Puja, the biggest annual festival of Bengal, had just ended. I missed the festivities for the fifth year in a row. Anyway, how to go to India - I did not know. How I would return was also uncertain. If I could come back, I would be back with Chi. And if I could not, I would try to get a job there. The idea of not being able to return came to mind because of the travel situation between the two countries. International travel was restricted in China at that time, and no direct flight route between the two countries were operational (and it is the same as of today). So, I had to travel via one or two more countries. Naturally, plane fares were skyrocketing. In a world map, you can connect the city of Guangzhou, where I lived, and the city of Kolkata with a small straight line. Indigo operated in this route. I traveled in a fare little over INR 10K. Now, I had to shell out a minimum of INR 60-70K. Maybe I could buy that ticket, but then there was another, and the most crucial, step – testing for Covid-19 at 28 and 48 hours interval before departure. And if one of the test results came positive, the journey would end before it started. If we afforded the ticket and the medical tests came negative, we could enter China, and then there would be 14-day mandatory quarantine at your own expenses, at the government-designated centers, which were nothing but the luxury hotel rooms. Cumulatively, the total cost of returning to China from India will be around INR 1.5 lakh per person.

That night I laid down and thought about it. Would I spend that much money on going home? Would not be it profitable in a bank? But sometimes, such calculations become irrelevant. I asked my mind, although I already knew the answer. I decided to begin preparations from tomorrow. The first thing would be to ask my boss.

Putting a plan in place

"I understand, you need to go home.”, my boss said.

"Yes sir, it has been so long. Everyone from my family is asking me to come home once. Payal should also be brought here.”, I said.

"What happened to Payal's arrival?”, he asked.

A few days before this conversation, we tried very hard to get Chi here. The route we decided was from Kolkata to Hong Kong via Delhi, and from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. But it was not easy to enter mainland China from Hong Kong. There was a lottery system. Everyday only one thousand people could enter the mainland from Hong Kong. We decided that Chi would move from Hong Kong to another city in China, where she would quarantine for 14 days. Me and my boss would go to that city and came back with her. We also had a conversation with a student, who graduated from our university and was currently living in Hong Kong. She gladly agreed to help Chi in every way. 

"No sir, Payal does not dare to come alone. Even his family is not ready to leave him alone."

"Yes, that's right too. She had never traveled like this alone. Then you go home and bring her. Did you decide any route?"

"Yes sir, Thai Airways has a flight - from Guangzhou to Kolkata via Bangkok."

“Ok, that’s great. Let me speak to the university once. If we can make it your official visit, then some of your travel expenses can be reimbursed.”

“Yes sir, it will be really helpful”, I said. Although I did not want to make this trip to become an official visit.

Homecoming booked

A few days passed without any development. I was becoming impatient with each passing day.

One day boss texted, "How long do you want to go home for?"

"At least two months.", I said.

"I spoke at the university. According to the rules here, you can get leave for a maximum of two weeks for personal reasons. And if you choose to make it official, then it can be one month, not more than that.”

I said in a whispered voice, "Sir, I haven't taken a vacation in the last three years. I can’t go and come back in two weeks."

"I understand”, he said. “Do one thing. Try to get an invitation letter from an Indian university, where it should be clearly written that they are inviting you for a project, and it will take at least two months to complete the work. And then you make a detailed daily program based on it. Fix the dates of your journey, and provide the details with the fares. Send me these three documents as soon as possible. I'll see what can be done."

It did not take long to create the travel program. I emailed one of the professors at the Indian Statistical Institute, from where I did my PhD. Dr. Abhishek Mukherjee was supportive as always. I gave all the papers to boss the next day. Then the wait began.

The application process that started in the first week of October, ended in the third week. In the meantime, a lot of paper had to be changed. I had to write some new letters. Finally, the approval email from the university came. My homecoming should be a vacation. Instead, it became an official visit, at least the university paper said that.

After that I did not wait much to buy tickets. I fixed November 26, four days before my wedding anniversary, as my journey date. The itinerary looked something like this:

• Thai Airways TG669 - Bangkok to Guangzhou, and

• Thai Smile WE313 - Bangkok to Kolkata.

The total fare was 2978 RMB, or around 30K in INR. I shared the news with everybody at home. That night, I could not sleep well with excitement. But alas, if I had known what to come next and how many sleepless and anxious nights were about to come, then I would try to sleep a little better that night.