Twelve days after he heard firing outside his home in Sudan's Kafouri. Guntur Vishnuvardhan safely set foot on Indian soil on Wednesday evening. The days and nights had only gotten worse since April 15 as the intensity of gunshots and bombs grew with each passing day.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle while on his way to his hometown in Andhra Pradesh's Chirala, Vishnuvardhan. said he couldn't wait to just hug his family. "I never told them about my situation for the first seven days of the war. It was so hard to keep it to myself. I would cover up my tension with laughter when I called them. But they eventually learned the news on TV and rang me up and I finally opened up," he said.
"We often had fighter jets fly over our roofs, releasing bombs and firing at people on the ground. How I'm alive is a pure miracle," said the lone Telugu evacuee among the 360 Indians who landed in Delhi. He was flown to Chennai and Vijayawada and taken to Chirala by road.
"Two days after this started, we began to lose our (cellphone) network, and power and water sup- ply got disrupted. Banks were robbed. Civilians in search of food beat up and killed and looted stores to feed their families. Most of the immigrants are daily-wage labourers, Vishnuvardhan said, adding that it was a tough sight to see several kids on the plane that brought the Indians back home.
Vishnuvardhan worked in a ceramic tiles company in Sudan for six years. He, along with 147 other Indians at the company relied on their neighbours' phones to stay in touch with their families. "It was only through WhatsApp that I could reach them. I was shattered and still can't believe I'm just hours away from home, "Vishnuvardhan said. He quit his job to ret- urn home and risked for going his salary for the month.
"I'm just glad I'm alive and I hope they pay me, let's see," he said. Vishnuvardhan and four others from different parts of the Telugu states contacted the embassy who awaited two ceasefires before deciding to evacuate
them. "We were put in four different WhatsApp groups, with almost a thousand in each of them. We travelled to Port Sudan, some were airlifted, and others were taken by the sea route," he explained. Vishnuvardhan was taken to Jeddah where I boarded this flight to Delhi.
The four others, whose visas weren't renewed, have to wait a day longer. He thanked the Central and state governments for their swift action, bearing the costs of his travel and the officials for checking on him often, even after he landed here.