The Anxiety of Arrival
The best part of a journey is when you come home. A month long visit to India, family duties and a short work related trip and I was ready to head back home to Japan.
Any travel in pandemic times requires a Negative PCT test report. Japan still allows test taken 72 hours before boarding the flight and a web search revealed the closest testing centre , sufficiently well known to be acceptable in Japan.
The testing centre is located at a respectable address , however after entering the location their were signs guiding people to a parking lot behind the building. A tent had been erected near the parking area, a prefab structure set up under the tent , a few plastic chairs placed around carelessly.
There were two people sitting in the prefab structure who ignored my presence and continued with whatever they were doing, uninterrupted.
I went over to the empty reception counter, reached over and pressed the only button I could find. It rang a bell over where the two people in the prefab structure were sitting and announced the next token number. They looked up briefly and asked me whether I had filled a form . Once the form was filled and the fee paid, then I was directed to one of the randomly strewn chairs.
A few minutes later I was called over to partially enclosed space and asked to sit on another chair and a swab was inserted into my nose. Two quick jabs and my test was over.
The swab insert was softer and lighter than the one I experienced in Japan. There was no push into the recesses of my nostril, no jab into the soft tissue, just a gentle roll of the swab.
Travel in normals times involves some amount of stress but in times when travel is discouraged the stress is peaks persistently. Even the slightest delay in these uncertain times can lead to a longer one and countries closing their borders the wait periods become uncertain.
My return trip kept pace with the uncertain times and what in normal times might have been ordinary delays resulted in more uncertainty and higher stress levels.
It started with a flight cancellation notice a few hours before I was to board a flight to Delhi. My airlines sent me a mail giving me a new itinerary which on closer examination showed that I had less than 40 minutes to connect to the Tokyo bound flight in Delhi.
It took around 30 minutes to reach Customer Service of my Airline, explain the issue, getting passed on to another customer service person who listened to the issue, agreed that I did not have enough time to take the connecting flight, told me that she would rebook me before the call got cut off.
So I was back to calling the customer service again and was waiting on the call when the original customer service person called back and rebooked the flight for 3 days later.
I explained to the customer service person that I would have to retake the PCR test as it was valid for only 72 hours and checked if they would compensate me for taking it again. The answer was a quick ‘No’.
’Sir we do not compensate for the tests’
So the trip was rescheduled, I had to cancel the taxi to the airport and waited for a few more days dreading another mail about a cancellation.
The Omicron surge was spreading across region and countries were receding again, closing borders, limiting flights or imposing additional conditions for the journey.
No such mail came and two days later I was back at the PCR test location at the parking lot behind the hospital. That day being a Sunday, there were more people at the Centre.
‘Can you tell what is the PinCode for Hyderabad, is it 5 Lakhs’? a lady filling up the form filling up the form asked me.
I had to think for a few seconds on what ‘5 lakhs’ meant before realising she was converting the Postal Code into the Indian Numeric System .
‘What documents do they require for the certificate’ another person asked me.
‘Passport Copy’ I answered
‘Will an original passport do’?
‘It should but you better ask them(the people at the counter)’
‘How many days before departure to Dubai should I take the test’ the same person asked, his confidence in my knowledge apparently increased.
‘I am not sure of that, I knew the US is 24 hours’, I replied
‘Will the people who do testing know’?
‘You should ask them’ there were limits to what I could answer.
His confidence in my abilities diminished , he went off to the counter for his questions.
The test once again was more gentle and comparatively less invasive than the one in Japan. The swab rolled gently inside the nostril and two gentle pokes later the test is done.
The day of travel arrived, the airport taxi came 10 minutes late but with advance notice about the delay , the suitcases tucked in and I was off to the airport.
The check in at the Air India counter involved them asking me questions about the documentation for my travel to Tokyo. The customer service representative asked me about the test form, whether I carried the one in English and Japanese(No), had I downloaded the apps required to monitor me(No).
‘My understanding is that I need to download the tracking app after landing in Japan’, I countered.
‘Please download it before leaving’ she countered back.
The skies over Hyderabad were hazy when we took off and ones over Delhi even hazier when we landed. The weather forecasts carry a report on the air quality which range from ‘Moderately Polluted’ to ‘Highly Polluted’. The mandatory masks during the pandemic feel like a blessing at times, the masks protecting us from the pollution. In pre-pandemic times anyone wearing a mask, especially in India, would have been looked at with bemusement and even alarm. But in these troubled times a mask sometimes felt like a blessing.
The transfer between the domestic and international terminals at the Delhi Airport involves exiting the Domestic Terminal doors and re-entering though the International Terminal ones. It requires showing documents at the door, immigration and a security check before entering the terminal.
Travel during the pandemic is limited to necessary and a large number of the travellers at the Delhi Airport were blue collar workers traveling to the Middle East countries for employment. They ranged from the somewhat literate to the barely literate and the officers at the immigration counters seemed to take a perverse pleasure in making their journeys as difficult as possible.
The questioning on the motives for their travel was intense, structured to result in mistakes , liberally peppered with insults and contemptuous in general.
However I received a totally different treatment . The only question being where was my visa expiry date(I am Permanent Resident and don’t have a visa expiry date, however the Residence Card needs to be renewed after 7 years). I pointed out the date and was allowed to proceed.
What does it reflect on a nation where we treat the poor and the deprived with contempt, their efforts to make a better living abroad derided and no help extended to those who try to work themselves out of their social status.
We focus on the spiritual, the television is full of gurus, the God-men and Women promising peace of mind in return for us buying whatever they are peddling, yet the very basic human value, empathy for the fellow being is curiously absent. What good is an enlightened mind if it cannot care for the less fortunate and what path is spirituality leading us to when we give no thought to the plight of our fellow beings.
The inequalities of life are clear in places like international airport terminals, the rich and the poor walking the same paths, taking the same flights and mostly traveling by the same class, yet the path to reach that aircraft seat is so different based on one’s economic status.
I had a lay over time of 7 hours and was in no particular hurry, walking slowly and browsing the airport shops.
‘Where do I catch the Air-India flight’ the rustic voice of a middle aged man accosted me during my materialistic contemplation.
’This is Delhi Airport, most of the flights are Air India’, I replied curtly
’How about Air India Express’, he countered.
’There are many flights for Air India Express too, you can find your flight by reading the Flight Display board’ I wasn’t happy with the intrusion to my window browsing time.
’Brother, if I could read I wouldn’t have asked you’, he replied matter of factly.
Deflated, I asked for his ticket, saw that he was heading to Bahrain, checked the flight number, looked at the display board, told him the gate number and pointed out the direction.
The image that we have of ourselves, the delusions of compassion, empathy and moral superiority, are just delusions because we respond based on how we have been conditioned. Growing up in India and traveling to countries in regions where a stranger asking for help is generally a ruse to build a rapport and take advantage at an opportune moment.
There have been other moments like someone asking for help in withdrawing money from the ATM, where there is a sign from the bank asking people to beware of people who will try to steal money, the dilemma in differentiating a genuine request from someone trying to take advantage is so great, that the first instinct is to brush off all such requests, only to realise after analysis that it might have been a genuine request. The request to withdraw money from the ATM was probably genuine, walking out of the ATM I saw an empty auto rickshaw, the person requesting me was probably the driver, and I felt the pangs of guilt at turning down the request!
Waiting at the gates a young couple came running to the next gate.
‘Has the Flight from Gate 19 already left’ the man shouted, out of breath, his voice breaking in panic.
‘My boarding time was 5:15 and departure was 6:15, now it is 6, do you know if the flight had left.
No flight had taken off from that gate for the last few hours I had been sitting there.
‘Can some please help’ he was pleading now.
‘Please, can someone help’, he repeated.
‘Check Gate No 9’, one of the few people sitting near the gate shouted.
The couple ran, their backpacks flailing as they ran in panic, the time was 6:05 now.
There was a sign above ‘Gate 1-10, it will take 5-10 minutes to walk to the gates’
Their only hope was the flights being delayed.
The boarding time approached, there was another flight to Tokyo, a JAL flight to Haneda from the gate facing ours. An hour before the flight was to take off there were announcements calling passengers.
In pre-pandemic times I would wait for the announcements , your name getting called sometimes meant a complementary upgrade, but in the times of restricted travel it probably meant checking the documents, the mandatory tests and the forms that need to be filled.
If the test reports and forms were not of acceptable level the passengers could be denied boarding.
The flight boarding was delayed, the crew came and waited, sitting on the row of waiting seats behind me and gossiping.
Some other crew members apparently hadn’t done a mandatory health check-up and judging by the reaction of the people sitting behind me it was close to scandalous.
The boarding time came and the sparse group that we were boarded without needing to crowd around the gates.My seat was in the middle row, on the aisle, but the whole row was empty.
A person sitting on the row to the left requested another one to move ahead because he wanted to sit closer to his friend. When the person agreed and moved, instead of moving to the row next to his friend he moved one row ahead, an empty one separating the two friends.
Both were having conversations on their respective phones, the lack of earphones meaning it was on speaker and audible to all. The crew asked them the volume down, which was ignored and they continued when the plane of taxing on the runaway.
One of them tried to broadcast, to the person he was talking to, the safety demonstrations by the crew, turning the phone camera towards them, when the crew members, having had enough shouted
‘Please do not record the safety demonstration’
Once the dinner was served, lights dimmed, everyone retreated to their spaces, watching the in flight entertainment, on the phones or sleeping.
The low passenger load meant many of the rows were occupied by a single passenger allowing the passengers to put up the seat rests and stretch their legs across the seats.
The morning brought in arrival preparations, forms were distributed, including the pledge required of all passengers. The pledge is required by the Japan Ministry of Health and requires the travellers to abide by the quarantine rules.
Breakfast was served, forms filled in and the plane landed in time despite the 30 minute delay at departure.
If there was one word to describe Japan, and you had to limit yourself to one word, it would be order. The sequence of events after landing were comfortingly orderly. A sequence of well organised and apparently well rehearsed steps taking everyone through the inspection process.
As the plane landed and everyone disembarked , we were handed another set of forms after getting down.
’These are new forms’ was the explanation.
The passengers were counted and asked to walk in two rows.
‘Fifty five’ the person in who seemed like a HAZMAT suit confirmed with another similar dressed one.
The walk from the arrival gates to the immigration area is a long one. In normal times it takes around 10 minutes to walk up to the immigration counters, 55 passengers walking together took a bit more time.
We passed by seating areas with chair arranged equidistantly and when the quarantine area came, we were directed to the first counter. My memory is a bit hazy on the number of counters I had to pass through, even though I tried to jot the details down immediately after finishing.
The first stop was to check all the papers including passport, the filled in forms, place of visit and the pre-boarding PCR test, then we headed for a Covid test where we had to spit into a small funnel, the required level marked out.
I struggled to produce the required quantity of sputum. A dry mouth, possibly due to an anti-allergy medication that I took required at least 5-6 attempts to each the required level.
’The top part is just foam’, the nurse rejected my first submission.
‘Try some more’, to my second attempt.
The third time she came over concerned
’How is brother doing’.
I showed the meagre amount of phlegm that was accumulated after all the tries.
‘This should be fine’, she conceded.
There was a check of the health form, confirmation of the places I had visited. They showed me a blank map of India to explain which state I had come from. When I lived in India there was one state, Andhra Pradesh which was split into two around 5 years ago. I struggled to point out where Telangana was located, choosing one which was the center most in the south of India. In hindsight it shouldn’t have been difficult, it was the only southern state which did not have a coast.
The next one was to install the monitoring app on my phone. I had installed the apps as instructed during the boarding at Hyderabad.
‘It’s not been updated’, I was told to read a QR code and accept the terms.
The next counter was to confirm my email and cell number. A test message was sent to the app to confirm the cell and an email sent to my account.
The next counter explained how to use the app.
‘Do you want an explanation in English and Japanese’ they asked.
I assumed, wrongly, that the number of Japanese speakers would be more and chose Japanese.
I was directed to a chair where a person from another South Asian nation, one bordering India was sitting.
He started explained to me in halting heavily accented Japanese, and I struggled to follow him. When I asked him to repeat some of what he had said, he switched to Hindi.
Unfortunately his Hindi was worse than his Japanese and barely understandable. I had to show him the screen, pause for a few seconds to sink in what was explained, convert it into Hindi again to understand what was said.
Our torturous dialogue ended a few minutes later, I was confident of sufficiently understanding what was said, he probably confident that his Hindi, liberally peppered with Bengali, had worked wonders.
The next step was a confirmation of the Health form I had filled up online.
‘Have you decided how to travel to your house from the airport’? she asked.
’I haven’t booked a cab yet’ I don’t know what time the processing will get over , I replied.
That also meant I was able to quarantine at home! The implications were understated in the way it was announced. The Japanese government had started identifying state which were deemed high risk and anyone traveling from these states would have to quarantine for 3 days at a government designated facility.
In the days leading to my travel I had feverishly checked the Japan Ministry of Health website checking the states that were identified ‘at risk’ and hoping that Telangana would not be added to that list.
‘You can book it around 10:30, the number of people is less today so it’ll get over faster’.
‘You need to wait for your test result and have some time so you can call the cab then’ she added helpfully.
A seat number was assigned to everyone who had finished the process and I occupied mine and called up one of the car hire companies recommended by the airport authorities.
They picked up immediately and explained the car could come only after 11:00 and might be delayed further as the driver was doing some other work.
In the time it took me to finish the booking, the seat numbers were being called out and we were asked to collect our results. When my seat number was called I went over, with hope and a tang of anxiety on the consequences of a positive result.
‘It is negative’ congratulations, please complete the immigration procedure’, it would have been unimaginable a few years ago that a negative test result would be the high point of a journey.
The travails of travel, delayed flights, annoying co-passengers, immigration hassles, lost or delayed baggage, transportation from the airport are minuscule in experience as compared to the dreaded positive test.
The fact is that all the old troubles still remain, but new fears get added and the act of traveling has all joy sucked out of it. In ordinary times an adjacent empty seat would have doubled the pleasure of travel, but in times when we have a row to ourselves, the dread of arrival brushes away the faint joys of solitary travel.
There were two more rounds of immigration checks, one to check the pre-boarding PCR tests.
‘Do you have the Japanese form filled’, I was asked.
’No’
I was asked to go back, then go to another immigration counter where the actual stamping happened. I had my residence card ready, having totally forgotten that the residence card is not checked when traveling in to Japan.
It was 10:00, almost two hours since the plane had landed and I was out. The bags were neatly placed near the belt, my turquoise suitcase clearly stood out, the other one sliver black required a little more search. One of the officials standing near the baggage belt came over , showed me the tags and asked me to confirm again that the bags were indeed mine.
‘Bags look similar and people make mistakes a lot’, he told me cheerfully.
The custom inspection went off without a hitch, the inspector not interested in opening my bags.
‘Coming from India’, was all he asked going over my form.
I called up the driver that the car hire company had assigned telling him I was out 30 minutes earlier than expected.
‘Please wait for some more time, it will take me at least an hour to get there’, he replied.
The car hire company had told me it could be around 11:30 by the time the car arrived, so I went in and took seat at the arrivals waiting area.
A Nepal Airlines flight was the next one scheduled to arrive and that explained the presence of a lot of Nepalese at the arrival area. A few policemen walked by, a SECOM robot patrolling the floor above me made a noisy entrance.
I sat in the warmth of the airport and watched the passengers trickle out. The fact that I was able to get out early was made clear when I saw a mother and child who traveled on the same plane come out an hour later. There were obviously many who could not manage to leave for home and had to be escorted to the government designated quarantine.
There is a calming comfort each time I come back to Japan. There have been times when I have rushed through immigration, customs and baggage retrieval trying to catch the next available bus, but even in that hurried dash the knowledge that I am at a place where things are organised always calms.
The car arrived a few minutes after 11:30, the driver came out bowed, handed me a bottle of water, a face wipe and a mask, activated the auto door of the Toyota Alphard, ensured I was sitting inside, put my luggage at the back of the car, came back to his seat and apologised for the delay.
When he dropped me off in front of my apartment, placing my suitcases right in front of the door, bowed , thanked me and left, I was glad that I was back home!
Quarantine
The Quarantine process involved me being at home, not venturing out and refraining from all contact with people other than the family members I resided with. The authorities required me to sign a pledge and anyone violating the pledge would have their name published in the Ministry of Health Website and in case of non-Japanese citizens a possible revocation of the visa.
There were two apps installed on the phone, one was used to report my location to the quarantine authorities and receive video calls from them. The other app was to check for contact with infected people.
I needed to do the following during my 14 days quarantine
- Report my and my family health status on a daily basis.
- Respond to the Location Report request that came through the app by pressing the ‘I’m here button’.
- Receive video calls and show my face to the camera
Each video call lasted 30 seconds and I did not interact with an operator on any of the calls. The fact that I answered all the calls immediately, responded to the location requests promptly might have something to do with no follow up calls.
I tried to document each one of the requests received along with the time. There were a few occasions where I noted down the time much later and the mentioned time could be off by 10-20 minutes but most of the times mentioned are accurate.
Quarantine Day 1
2021/12/23
14:00 Video Call
Quarantine Day 2
2021/12/24
08:30 Location Report
12:15: Location Report
13:30 Location Report
14:25 Video Call
15:35 Location Report
19:55 Video Call
Quarantine Day 3
2021/12/25
09:30 Location Report
11:00 Location Report
13:35 Video Call
16:35 Location Report
19:35 Video Call
Quarantine Day 4
2021/12/26
10:00 Location Report
11:35 Location Report
13:30 Video Call
17:00 Location Report
19:10 Video Call
Quarantine Day 5
2021/12/27
11:20 Location Report
12:35 Video Call
13:30 Location Report
18:35 Video Call
Quarantine Day 6
2021/12/28
09:20 Location Report
12:30 Video Call
13:15 Location Report
14:30 Location Report
18:20 Video call
Quarantine Day 7
2021/12/29
08:20 Location Report
13:25 Location Report
14:45 Video call
17:30 Location Report
18:10 Video call
Quarantine Day 8
2021/12/30
09:50 Location Report
11:15 Location Report
11:40 Video Call
15:15 Location Report
17:30 Video call
Quarantine Day 9
2021/12/31
11:15 Location report
11:20 Video call
13:20 location report
15:25 Location Report
17:15 Video call
Quarantine Day 10
2022/1/1
10:15 Location Report
10:55 Video Call
12:15 Location Report
15:20 Location Report
17:05 Video Call
Quarantine Day 11
2022/1/2
10:30 Video call
11:15 Location Report
12:15 Location Report
16:20 Location Report
16:30 Video Call
Quarantine Day 12
2011/1/3
09:10 Location Report
10:00 Video Call
16:00 Location Report
16:15 Video Call
Quarantine Day 12
2021/1/4
09:30 Location Report
09:50 Video Call
12:10 Location Report
15:55 Video Call
Quarantine Day 14
2021/1/5
09:10 Location Report
09:50 Video Call
11:50 Location Report
17:10 Location Report
When my quarantine period ended the reporting app automatically refreshed and removed all the reporting features. I still have the app on my phone for any possible overseas travel in the coming months.
