A marathon trip back home in times of pandemic

Safely ensconced in her house at Edappally after an arduous road trip covering over 2,100 km across seven COVID-19-hit States in nearly three days, Veena Roshan Jose simply could not shake off a sense of loss.

An assistant professor at the National Law University at Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Ms. Jose had to pass through countless pandemic hotspots before she joined her anxious family back home on Monday.

“It would have been such an unforgettable journey if not for the pandemic. As it turned out, we had to rush through not having the luxury to take in the sights along the way,” she recalled. Having shifted to Jabalpur just six months ago, Ms. Jose’s family was to join her on March 28 before the lockdown three days prior put paid to the plans.

Since she had a young family — her younger son turned three just recently — the university let her return home as early as the first week of May. Since then, Ms. Jose had been frenetically searching for co-passengers as it was unsafe to make the long car journey back home alone.

Eventually, one Shaji, a Keralite who runs the canteen at her university, helped her find two fellow passengers — a priest from Kottarakkara and a woman bound for Kayamkulam. The group made all arrangements for the trip, including securing exit and entry passes from Madhya Pradesh and Kerala governments and packed food for the entire length of the journey, in three days before setting out on May 23 at 5 a.m.

The whole trip was marked with just two brief halts in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu since stopovers in alien places during the pandemic were unsafe. “Checking was lax in Maharashtra, while it was stringent in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. The biggest challenge was Bengaluru where almost all roads were closed, and it took us hours to exit the city,” Ms. Jose said.

They finally made it through the Kumily check-post on the morning of March 25.

Ms. Jose is supposed to rejoin the university after the vacation on June 29 though the trip back to the workplace hinges on how the situation pans out on the pandemic front.