My trip from Male’ to Kochi on INS Jalashwa (page 6)
It was Sunday. Barely. 0100 hours. A friend of mine woke me up. He was really excited about reaching home. I bathed that day. It was hard, but I powered through. We were in the anchor room from 0130 hours till 0600 hours. Just waiting for a glimpse of land in the pitch blackness of night. There was none. After that, we went to the open deck. To watch the sun rise. It was too cloudy for that though. After a while, we gave up. Friends went down for breakfast. I chose to have tea only.
Just waiting for a glimpse of land in the pitch blackness of night
After breakfast, we went back up. After an hour or so, finally, land. We could see buildings, far away. We were asked to clear the deck at that point. All of us rushed to the common area. All our luggage was kept in a line there. Last day’s briefing had information on disembarking procedures. Women and family first. Gents would be called up on district wise. At that point though, nobody seemed to care. Navy personnel tried their best at containing the crowd and were failing. It was even more hot and humid there with roughly 700 people in the same place, packed into a corner, to make way for disembarkation. Everybody just wanted to get out. Seemed like everyone forgot about COVID. Masks were on shoddily on everyone’s face, but that was pretty much the only form of protection. At one point we were sleeping on top of each other, tired, waiting for our turn. We were provided another meal. It was Vegetable Biriyani. Starting and ending with the same meal. Poetic in a sense.
It was noon when I finally got out. On land. After 48 hours on board that ship. Cannot say I would miss anything there, but it would be an unparalleled experience for me for sure. For a long time to come. I once again thank Indian Navy for taking good care of us. But I cannot say the same about the decision of bringing people in this pandemic situation using such means. There are more ships to come after mine. I sincerely hope no one with COVID gets on any of these ships. If they do, there is very little we can do to stop the spread.
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