Quarantine is fine: Passengers find India much safer

For Adithya Shetty, getting a seat on the first evacuation flight from London to Bengaluru was a massive relief after a desperate wait for a month. “I feel very happy to be here. Bengaluru feels so much safer, with even the lockdown getting eased,” he told DH on arrival at the Kempegowda International Airport early Monday morning.

“I had booked a flight in March itself before this sudden lockdown got me stuck there,” recalled the student of MS in International Business Management, who paid a hefty fare for the ticket. It was getting pretty expensive back in London for him, bearing hostel bills and more.

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Shetty was among four people, all of whom were headed to a three-star hotel in Whitefield for the 14-day quarantine. But unlike him, it was a mixed feeling for Priyanka Dasari, a pregnant software engineer who had to return without her husband. “I was supposed to return with my husband Anil Kumar, who has a job in London. He could not be accommodated on the flight as the first preference was given to pregnant women and elderly people,” she said.

The high cost of accommodation in London was what forced Chirag M G, a student of astronautics to take the first flight home. “It was not sustainable. Now that I am here, I feel India is much safer. Quarantine is fine with me,” he said.

In the words of Pawan, an engineer who found a place on the flight just in time with his wife and child, the pandemic is spinning out of control in London. “Nobody is following any restrictions.”