My trip from Male’ to Kochi on INS Jalashwa (page 2)

Back to the morning of that evacuation day. It was Friday, 8th of May. Woke up early that day. Packed up all that I can and all the goodies from my friends in Male’. I registered at the initial pick up point in Male’ City. After gifting us a juice box, two packs of biscuits and a bottle of water, they took us to the Airport next, which is on another island. Hardly a 10-minute trip. Saying that the Velana International Airport was crowded would be a gross understatement. People were everywhere. Queues merging in and out, all over the place. No social distancing or precautions. Just a lot of desperate people excited to get home. I got in a queue. It would be more precise to say I cut one. I know that it is not a glorious thing to do, but in that situation, I was ready to trade my honor for a faster way back home. That was the first queue in the whole trip of the many – many more to come. After I got in through the initial checks, my temperature was recorded for the first time along with my passport number. On the way to the baggage scanner, in my next queue, I was scanned/photographed once again. After baggage scanning, I was in yet another queue where I got the boarding pass. It was past 1000 hours. I left Male’ at around 0730 hours.

Two more queues later, I had submitted a form and paid my fee for the trip. It was 40 USD. A bit less than what I would normally pay for the same trip on a commercial airliner. It was waiting time now. For the lesser beings that were not lucky enough to cut in the first queue. Lunch was served. Vegetable Biriyani. It was good or I was too hungry, does not matter much either way. After lunch I was on another queue. Precisely the 6th one that day – to board a bus. Back to Male’ then. It was around 1200 hours. They took us to a port – looked like a commercial port with a lot of containers. Got out and guess what? Another queue. This time there were chairs. Thank goodness. But my luck ran out there. By the time I reached the chairs, the next bus arrived with a bunch of pregnant ladies and the gents all had to give up their chairs for them. Ok, I get to keep a bit of my honor after all, I guess. A dash of disinfection, a tight mask that chaffed the back of ears and some more temperature scans and questions later, I was standing in front of the long metal ramp that leads to the behemoth INS Jalashwa. It was said to be the third largest in Indian Navy. An Amphibious transport dock, the only ship to be purchased by Indian Navy from the US. It was originally christened as USS Trenton back in 1966. It is old, but it still looked very intimidating. The ramp was very narrow. Too narrow for my trolley luggage. Had to lift that 25 KG roller all the way up. They seated me inside.