Some days are just hard

This post is about a day in our lives last year, a day that started as pretty normal and ended up being one of the most demanding days. We flew to India last year, on March 4th 2020, when Covid was just starting to pick up and disrupt lives. We had to fly urgently since my grandfather passed away. We landed in India on March 5 early morning and the following days were very busy and eventful.

Thursday March 19 was the first real day in the last 2 weeks since we had landed in India that was slow and relaxing. Swati(my wife) was at her parents' house, I was at mine. There was absolutely no agenda for the day. I woke up around 9am, just strolled around in the house doing nothing. Then I decided to get a haircut and went to a shop nearby around 11:30am. The owner of the shop wasn’t there, I waited for 20 mins and then came back home. As soon as I came back, he called back saying he is back at the shop. I was hungry by then, it was lunch time so I decided to get a haircut maybe later in the evening or some other day. Once I was done with my lunch, I was just browsing on my phone when I got a notification that our passports were ready for pickup. We had submitted our passports for H1b stamping and due to Covid restrictions the embassy was also shutting down for all business starting Friday. I looked at my watch, it was 12:30pm. I realized there is enough time for us to go pick our passports today from Delhi instead of leaving it to the last day tomorrow. I called Swati to check with her, and she agreed we should go right away. So I went to her house, which was about 10 mins away from mine. At 1:15pm, we were in an Uber enroute to the Visa application center in Delhi.

We reached the center at 2:15pm, and we were on our way back in 10 mins with our passports. Took us another 45 mins to come back to Swati’s home. At this point, we started discussing our plans. Now that we had our passports, we were planning on cutting our trip short and flying back to San Francisco in the next 4-5 days. Given the state of the world at that time, when all countries were imposing travel restrictions and sealing borders, we didn’t want to be stuck in India indefinitely, since we still had to start working soon again. In the midst of all these discussions, we went to a friend’s place around 4pm to meet them. Next couple of hours were spent chatting, eating and just having a good time. We came back home around 6:30pm. We decided that I’ll go back home and then start looking for flight options for the next 4-5 days. Our original return date was April 5. I started from Swati’s home around 7:30pm, and even though there was no rush in my mind, I decided to wrap up a few chores before reaching my house. I picked a lot of clothes we had given for dry cleaning, I bought some medicines we had to carry back with us, and finally reached my house at 7:55pm.

At 8pm, we found out that the Government of India has introduced travel restrictions and no international flights will land in India starting March 22nd. Since we were flying Air India and we wanted to have a direct flight to reduce further interactions due to Covid, that meant the last Air India flight going out would be March 21st. I opened my laptop immediately and started looking for flights. The 21st morning 4am flight sold out before I could book it. Luckily I found a flight for March 20th, flying out at 5pm from Delhi, so in about 21 hours from now. I booked it and then broke the news to my parents that we are flying back tomorrow. Mood in the house dropped sharply, now was finally the time I would get to spend with my parents, sit with them, talk to them. For past 2 weeks we had been so busy with all ceremonies and activities. But they understood the seriousness and were trying to cheer me up, even when they were feeling so sad. I told Swati also about the flight and we decided she would come back next morning from her parents' house so we can start packing. I wanted to start packing right away since there was enough stuff for me to be able to pack 2 check-in bags. My dad kept telling me not to stress so much and was trying to cheer me up. All this while, my stress was going up because I was yet to receive booking confirmation for the flight. I started refreshing emails furiously waiting for it. As time was going away I was getting a feeling something is wrong. So finally at 10pm I went upstairs to my room and started gathering all stuff to pack.

10:15pm I got an email saying your booking was declined. This day wasn’t done with us. I opened my laptop again and I could see a flight on March 20th 4am still available on AirIndia website. This was in less than 6 hours. I called Swati and we decided to book it and make a run for it. She picked her stuff and was on way here. I would fill in all the information, hit Submit and nothing would happen. This happened multiple times. I could see pending charges on my credit card for my attempts but there was no confirmation that I had booked this flight. While I was trying this, Swati was back home along with her mom, brother and his wife. At this time, we decided to give it our all. We decided to pack up and head to the airport and find out if we got on the flight or not. There was no other flight after this at all. So all of us started packing, and we started from our home at 12:05am March 20th for the airport. My dad was saying I am pretty sure you will be back. And I was saying I won’t give up without trying.

We reached the airport at 1:10am, for a flight taking off at 4am, without any tickets or confirmation. I ran to the booking counters at the airport. There was 1 window and maybe 20-30 people trying to book flights, find status etc. After a lot of attempts I learned that our booking didn’t go through and that there were no seats available on this flight. Then I found out that even though AirIndia was showing this flight available at 10:15pm, I couldn’t actually book due to some regulations where you can’t purchase tickets for international flights online if it is within 6 hours of departure. When we had given up and were about to head out of the booking center, Swati noticed the flight information board showing a flight to Chicago at 4:30am. How is that possible? AirIndia flight from Delhi to Chicago takes off at 2:30am, why is it showing 4:30am? I went back to the booking counter to ask. They confirmed this flight got delayed due to delay on inbound flight. I asked them to check if this flight had any seats available, and it had 2 seats available. I came back to Swati and we realized we just need to make it back to the US. Once we are there we can figure out how to get back to San Francisco. So I went back to the booking counter and we got the tickets to Chicago at 1:50am. While this was going on, I had called a friend in the US to check flights from Chicago to San Francisco. He confirmed there were flights available all day at almost every hour. So we decided we’ll book a flight to SFO once we are in Chicago and are done with immigration and customs.

We finally boarded this flight to Chicago at 4:15am and took off at 6am after further delays. Once in Chicago, we booked the flight to San Francisco and were finally back home by 7pm. This is how full our flight from Chicago to San Francisco was

This has to be one of the longest, hardest days of our lives but when we look back, we feel blessed that things worked out at every step. We kept navigating tricky situations, making bold decisions and were able to be back home on the last possible flight. Had we missed that flight, we would have been stuck in India for many months. That day taught us so many things about ourselves and uncertainities of life. Looking back on all this experience, it might be one of the best days as well.