The joy of home-coming for a few Kiwi-Indians

Rohit Sharma with his wife

It is said that the real champions fight through adversities. Rohit Sharma, who helped almost 160 people get back home to New Zealand from India, is one of those champions. Sharma who went to India in March 2020, was one of the many permanent residents (PR), migrant workers and citizens of New Zealand who got stranded in India due to Covid-19.

Credit to Sharma though, he did not become a victim of circumstance and explored every option available for himself and many like him who were desperate to come back to their day-to-day lives in New Zealand. Sharma, who tested negative in his isolation in Christchurch said, “I am happy to be back in New Zealand that I call home and very glad that I could bring my wife along.”

Flying with CapaJet Limited

Now in quarantine, all the Kiwi-Indians who could come back to New Zealand, their home, are thankful to Sharma. He had created a community on WhatsApp of almost 300 people who were looking at ways to come back to New Zealand and he coordinated with CapaJet officials to work out the best option. Finally, the best visible and available option was the flight which was going to bring back Fijian Indians from Middle East, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea.

When the chartered flight got all permissions from the Fiji and New Zealand Governments, people booked their seats quickly with transportation, three-day quarantine, and food charges included in the total fare. Covid-19 tests were done when the passengers were in quarantine. After positive test results, 14 people could not board the flight. Five of the 160 who travelled in the chartered flight have tested positive of Covid-19 after reaching Christchurch.

The journey back home

The flight from New Delhi to Fiji had halted at Jakarta, Sri Lanka, and Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. People were flown by Air New Zealand from Fiji to Christchurch.

“We have been taking people back and forth from various countries during these unseen times. The various governments in different countries are confident about our operations. We are constantly looking at improving the procedure so that it is effective for everyone,” said Jay Wan, Operations Manager, CapaJet Limited, with much conviction.

He also mentioned that while considering feedback from authorities and governments, CapaJet is looking at doing more flights this month in the same route.

On the other hand, Sharma is coordinating from his isolation center with the remaining citizens, PRs, and migrants of New Zealand to get back home from India. Syed Abubakkar who would soon be reunited with his wife and two children said, “Rohit did a great job at bringing many stranded people back to their homes and livelihoods. Also, the New Zealand government escorted the returnees well to managed isolation centres.”

- by Shivangi Bose, an experienced media professional and writer, who recently moved to Auckland, and has a special interest in script-writing for brand videos.