Flying in the Times of COVID

 Shobha's mom fell ill and we got an SOS call from Milind. 'I think you should come,' he said. So we booked our tickets for Sunday and gritted our teeth for the journey not knowing what to expect. After all the precautions of all these months, not moving out, not meeting people etc, we finally had to bite the bullet and do many things we hadn't. Like booking a Uber for instance!

So the flight tickets were not too expensive even for the next day. We booked our tickets with no idea of what to expect. Then we booked a Uber put on our masks and headed off to the airport which was completely empty. The CISF chap asked us to show our Aarogya Sethu app which is a crazy exercise because no one knows what it means (one wonders if having the app slowly cures you by leaking in through the phone). Then we show our boarding passes etc and then we get in and do our security stuff. At the gates the airline gives us a kit - mask, shield, sanitiser and stuff and you are asked to wear and sit with those inside. The middle row which used to be empty earlier now is full and the person sitting there has to wear a PPE which is primarily a white coat that makes you look like a doctor. I don't see how the white coat will prevent the virus from moving one seat to another sideways but well, perhaps we can fool it by looking like doctors. 

A few rebels tried various things - like not wearing face shield and trying to hide their face when the hostesses came around, not wearing PPEs, wearing PPEs but not sitting in middle seats etc. After they were pacified the next thing was to eat. The girls served us some nice sandwiches and stuff and we felt it was better than what we ate before.

When we finally landed in Pune, the girls told us to alight row after row, which is something we could do when there is no pandemic situation as well. But the moment the flight stopped everyone got up and tried to bring down their cases in a rather violent manner, endangering people around. People tried to get ahead of their row in a desperate bid to get ahead in life but overall some  semblance of order prevailed and we got off.

Uber at Pune airport and home. Piece of cake. You can take the face shield home because it is quite useful, something Anjali did, but I didn't. More on the situations here in COVID times soon!