West Asia conflict inflicts 20-day ordeal on Odia doc to get back to work in Germany

Bhubaneswar: A journey that would have taken a day despite two different time zones lasted nearly 20 days with the traveller, Dr Siddharth Pattanayak, stranded in West Asia due to the war. And, instead of Rs 70,000, he had to shell out Rs 2.3 lakh for the journey.

Siddharth from Bhubaneswar is a robotic urology surgeon in Munich (Germany) and was travelling back to his workplace after a brief visit home.

On Feb 28, he started from Bhubaneswar to Bangalore from where he flew to Bahrain where he had a 17-hour layover before he could fly out to Munich. To make the best of the layover, he preferred to visit Bahrain with his friend Y Ravikumar left the airport with a visiting visa. Little did he know that he wouldn’t be able to re-enter the airport as planned in the afternoon because the air strikes had started on US 5th fleet naval base by then and the airport was shut.

Siddharth had to leave without his check-in baggage, which he is yet to get even now. His friend, Ravikumar, accommodated him at another friend’s place in Manama for safety. Amid the air strikes, started his struggle to get out of Bahrain, whose air space was completely closed. Through his doctor friend Swalehin Bux, a cardiologist, he came in touch with Bahrain Odia Samaj founder Arun Praharaj, who facilitated a request letter from the Indian embassy for a transit visa to go to Damman in Saudi Arabia from where he could fly to Jeddah. By then, 10 days had passed.

“On March 11, I took a taxi from Bahrain to the Saudi Arabia border. Reached Dammam via local transport and with a request letter from the Indian embassy for a Saudi Arabia transit visa. Managed to reach the airport by 11 am,” said Siddharth, speaking to TOI over phone from Munich. He had to fly out of Jeddah at 10 pm, then take connecting flights to Amsterdam and Berlin. Tired, he dozed off in the flight only to be deboarded at 12:30 am because of air strikes at an oil facility and poor visibility due to smoke. The boarding and deboarding continued until the flight was finally cancelled around 5 am on March 12.

Finally, with the help of a local, he reached Jeddah via Riyadh, waited throughout Thursday (March 12) night, Friday at the airport till he got a flight to Amsterdam and reached at 8:40 am, from where he left for Berlin and reached on March 14 night. By that time, the fever he had got during his Bahrain stay had got severe. He stayed in Berlin for five days to recuperate and could only travel to Bogenhausen Hospital, Munich, on March 20. “I lost my taste and hearing when I was in Bahrain. I am yet to get it back. It will take me at least another fortnight to recover,” said Siddharth, who usually travelled from Bhubaneswar to Delhi to Munich.