Sanskrita Bharadwaj (HINDUSTAN TIMES; May 18, 2020)

Singer-composer Zubeen Garg, who was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Mumbai before the Coronavirus lockdown, has finally reached his hometown, Guwahati. How? By travelling on a bus from Maharashtra to Assam. Garg had fallen unconscious during an event in Assam.

He was accompanied by his wife Garima Saikia Garg, and two other friends.

Though he was discharged after recovery from the Mumbai hospital he was admitted to, he got stuck in the city because of the lockdown. “I have a flat in Mumbai, but there were two cases in the building, and it was sealed. So, we had to rent a room and a kitchen in a hotel. There were four of us. We were cooking our own food. But I wanted to go back to Assam,” Garg says, adding, “We contacted the Assam Bhawan in Mumbai. The government was arranging commute for 132 other people, including 62 cancer patients and their family members, who were stranded in Mumbai to reach Assam. They also reached the state in sleeper buses. All of them were in six different buses. And four of us were in another sleeper bus. We left on May 8 and reached on May 12. Assam Police coordinated with authorities in all the other five states that we had to cross through.”

Narrating his experience, Garg said, “There were lots of people on the road, trying to get back home. It was heartbreaking to see so many people trying to reach their destinations. We had to slow down because of the movement of these people.”

Upon reaching, Garg and co, were quarantined at a hotel in Guwahati for about three days. They will be in home quarantine now until May 28. When asked how he felt when he found out his test was negative, he says, “I wasn’t scared. In Mumbai, I was in the ICU where nobody was allowed. Then, even when we were in the hotel, we hardly ventured out. We took all the necessary precautions. People don’t know where the virus is, we can’t see our enemy. We have to stay indoors for sometime now and we will have to keep our surroundings clean. We will have to avoid gatherings. And, all of this will hamper our economy.”