Sharan Nair has never felt so helpless in his life.
If the news that his mother was not keeping well in Moscow was not bad enough, things turned even worse when his father got stranded at the Dubai airport where he continues to languish with 22 other fellow Indians for the past five days.
“The airport remains closed and the group of Indians, including my father, are stranded in the common area. They have been desperately trying to reach out to the Indian Consul General in Dubai and the Ministry of External Affairs to help them out. But authorities haven't done anything yet,” said Sharan, who lives at Kadavanthra here. His father, 55-year-old Rajendran Nair, was with him till last week when he had to hurry back to Moscow after being told that his wife was not well. The elderly couple are settled in Moscow, where Mr. Nair has been running a hotel business for the past three decades.
He flew from Kochi to Dubai from where he was to take the flight to Minsk in Belarus via Moscow. He flew out by the Emirates flight EK 531 and reached Dubai on March 22.
‘In no man's land’
“By the time he took the flight to Dubai, Russia had already closed its borders but flights in transit were permitted. So he had planned to fly all the way to Minsk, which was still open, and then drive his way back to Moscow. But Russia banned entry even to flights in transit, thus leaving him stranded at Dubai,” said Sharan.
Now, Mr. Nair and the other Indians are literally left in no man's land. With India in a nationwide lockdown, they cannot fly back to the country while the Russian borders also remain sealed.
“I am communicating with my father at irregular intervals as a continuous contact is not possible. Along with the airport, all the eateries there also remain shut, making access to food tough. None of them are sick yet. But left in an open space without any protective gear like masks, they are highly vulnerable,” Sharan said.
