Coronavirus: Indian grandparents stranded in Dubai airport for 3 weeks adjust to new reality

Elderly couple have faith they will return home when it is safe as New Delhi calls for patience from citizens stuck overseas

Amal Kumar Mandal and his wife Tripti, with their grandchildren Anahita and Ayantika, in happier times at their home in Vadodara, India last year. Courtesy: Amal Kumar Mandal

A pair of grandparents who have been stranded at Dubai International Airport for more than three weeks say they remain hopeful the Indian government will repatriate them.

The couple, Amal Kumar and Tripti Mandal, were transiting in Dubai when a storm delayed their flight. Soon after, their home country of India announced a lockdown and suspended all domestic and international flights.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the lockdown until May 3 to stop the spread of coronavirus within the world's second largest population.

On day 24 inside Dubai airport, Mr Mandal, 75, told The National he has accepted his new reality and overcome being "mentally upset" as he was the first few days.

“Every day I think 'we will go home tomorrow' but my mind has had to adjust to the situation,” said Mr Mandal, who has been living in a hotel airport with his wife since March 21.

“I do want to go home but for now I know there is no alternative but to stay here.”

He holds on to hope that special flights will be arranged to take them to their home town of Vadodara, also known as Baroda, in western India.

The couple had been on their way home after visiting family in Sydney.

“If you ask me if I’m OK, I have to say ‘yes’,” said Mr Mandal, who is diabetic but has enough medication.

“But I do want to go home because living like this is difficult at my age. I cannot think up to May. If our luck permits, I hope there will be some permission granted for us to go back.”

Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s Civil Aviation Minister, said the government would only consider lifting the restrictions on flights after May 3.

“I understand the problems being faced by people who need to travel and request them to bear with us,” he said in a message on Twitter.

Ms Mandal, 73, has been praying daily and takes comfort chatting with her granddaughters in Australia.

She feels fortunate to be safe when they watch news about the devastation caused by the deadly virus elsewhere.

“When we see the state of many nations and the deaths, we feel we are lucky,” said Ms Mandal.

“We pray, eat food, talk to each other and watch television,” she said.

“I have faith we will be taken back when it’s safe.”

The couple paid for the hotel for four days until their money ran out. UAE authorities have since stepped in to provide free accommodation and food to at least 19 stranded passengers from March 26, when the Emirates shut down inbound and outbound travel.

The travellers must remain in the transit area and cannot enter the country because the government has suspended visit visas.

Pleas for repatriation in the Emirates have not been limited to stranded transit passengers.

Thousands of unemployed workers want to go home after the companies they worked for shut down to slow the spread of the virus.

It is understood that about 70,000 Indians may return home when the lockdown is lifted.

These include workers on unpaid leave and people on visit visas.

Haneefa Alikunhi, 49, has not received last month's salary and depends on daily food parcels from social workers.

The cosmetic store assistant from Kerala, who has lived in the capital for 10 years, is in strict home quarantine along with others in a building on Electra Street in Abu Dhabi after a fellow worker tested positive.

“The first chance I get I will go back because staying in one room without work is no use,” he said.

India has enforced hard border closures that do not allow repatriation flights into the country. But countries including Germany, Britain and Canada were allowed to repatriate their citizens from India during the lockdown.

Emirati officials are understood to have offered to test passengers for Covid-19 and, if instructed, quarantine people before sending them home.

They aim to reach arrangements with governments to help expatriates who wish to return home but need agreement from countries to facilitate flights.

Mr Vipul, the Indian Consul General in Dubai, said formal guidance from Delhi was awaited.

The Mandals each tested negative for Covid-19 in tests administered inside the airport.

Mr Alikunhi, who shares an apartment with 22 other workers, has also tested negative. He will take one more test this week along with other men in similar crowded flats.

“I’m negative but I don’t have any money,” said Mr Alikunhi, who is keen to return to Kerala to his wife and five children.

“There is uncertainty everywhere. Maybe at home I can do my old job as an autorickshaw driver.”