'All I wanted was a good hot water bath and a cosy bed' http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=hub230208AllWanted.asp
Raghu Guria Is 34 years old. Has been a filmmaker for the last 13 years. Currently based in Delhi and working as an independent filmmaker I WAS RESTLESS and weary as the warm October morning breeze hit me on the face. We had just landed at the Mumbai international airport all the way from Kenya. I had not had any sleep for 26 hours. All I wanted was a good hot water bath and a cosy bed. Little did I know, "Dilli abhi door hai". I made my way towards custom clearance. The official looked at my passport and then looked at me. "Where is your yellow fever certificate?" he thundered. "What's that?" I was puzzled. "You have travelled to Kenya and you don't have a yellow fever certificate?" "Nobody told me anything about it." "Nobody tells you about it. It's the law. You should know." "Fine! I don't have it. Do as you like." The custom officer broke into a smile. I was bewildered. He ushered me into a cabin and handed my passport to the Airport Health Officer. I figured the health officer would do a quick check-up, ascertain that I don't have yellow fever disease, apologise and let me go. But that was not to be. I was informed that I would be spending the next six days at a government health centre. "Six days? Are you crazy? Do you know I'm a mediaperson?" I ranted and raged. My host, however, was benevolence personified after pronouncing the verdict. Three constables escorted me to the government health centre. I was already beginning to feel sick. Not with yellow fever, but by seeing the amount of filth around me. The property was surrounded by slums from all sides; it had the stinkiest drain flowing just two metres away from the entrance of the building. Did I say "building"? It was more like a ruin. There was a thick jungle of wild bushes and plenty of mosquitoes. I didn't know about yellow fever from Kenya but I was sure that, at the end of six days, I'd definitely leave this place with dengue. It turned out that the 'Government Health Centre' was actually a euphemism for 'Quarantine Centre for Government of India', its real name. It was built in 1942. It finally dawned upon me that I had been officially quarantined. I was furious. When the warden arrived, I demanded to see in writing that it was mandatory to carry a yellow fever certificate to visit Kenya. He showed me a handwritten note, which listed practically all of Africa as a Yellow Fever zone. I was flabbergasted. "How can you claim a tattered handwritten piece of paper as official?" I asked. The warden had been in that post for fifteen years and was quite inured to such questions. He informed me that had I made a stopover even for a day in a country not in the yellow fever zone, the Indian government would have had no problems in letting me in. This was funny. How would stopping over in a country cure me of yellow fever if I had contracted it? The warden helpfully added that I could still escape my predicament by choosing to fly out of India and come back in a few days time. But in the interim, since he liked media-persons, as a special favour, I was being given a choice of beds - Sania Mirza or Dino Morea. I chose the bed, which I was told, had been used by our young tennis star when she had been quarantined. I was still trying to take stock when an elderly gentleman came up to me with a cup of tea. I shook my head. "Have it, have it. You still have five more days to go," he said. Turned out he had also been quarantined and was on his fourth day. Another captive was a priest from the local church. "Do they allow home food?" he enquired. The third inmate rarely stepped out of his room. When he did, it was to borrow a mobile-phone charger. He had arrived a day earlier and contrived to get his wife from Baroda to come and be quarantined with him! So I spent six days there. We had to arrange for our own food, which meant ordering out from a list of restaurants whose numbers had been provided. There wasn't much to do. As a caretaker explained, the property wore a haunted look in part because it sat on prime real state and the government had already decided to sell it. There was no point in doing any repairs. I was struck by the fact that in my six days there not once did a doctor come to see us. The whole reason we were there was because we could have contracted yellow fever. So what exactly was the point of this whole exercise? I don't mind being quarantined if I deserved it, but these inane, archaic rules were being kept alive just so that callous and unscrupulous government officials could make some extra money on the side. The only good thing that came out of the whole ordeal is that I no longer take my freedom for granted. _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
