Our youngsters in Ukraine

Kyiv before the war. (Photo: Eugene via Unsplash)

Students who go abroad worry about many things – fees, semesters, the extreme weather, learning a foreign language, being away from family and friends – but rarely do they have to dodge bullets and bombs. There is no curriculum for conflict zones, no precedent or protocol. Amidst airport shutdown, border check-posts opening and shutting in a blink, fisticuffs and racial slurs, Indian students in Ukraine are caught up in a political crisis they have nothing to do with.

Some are back here, insomniac from PTSD, while many are still there, huddled in bunkers as sirens go off, buying overpriced food, fingers crossed against random shelling and gunfire. Without much clarity on escape routes or embassy guidelines, boys and girls rely on fear and adrenaline to make it out of there.

First the panic. As parents anxiously dial them after watching the news, the kids are left scrambling blindly for exits and standing in serpentine queues in sub-zero temperatures, the dread more numbing than the cold. Ill-prepared and incoherent, the students, mostly in their late teens or early 20s, just want to wake up from their worst nightmare.

A student who made it back speaks of a circuitous and exhausting escape. A taxi took them only so far – the rest, approximately 35 km, on foot – as interstate borders began to jam up. To Rohit Eldo Benjamin, a fourth-year medical student in Lviv, it was a survival tactic to not be in constant touch with his family in Kerala. That would have heightened emotions and some amount of hysteria, and he wanted, above all, to stay calm and get through this, be back home somehow. Having thrown away their own suitcases early for easy mobility, they spent nights shivering on a stranger’s porch or setting fire to abandoned bags of other people for warmth.

At the checkpoint, the chaos only grew. The gates open up once in many hours and then only five or six people can cross to the other side. Huge ruckus as people try to climb the fence, with the border police doing what they can to restore order, beating up and shouting. ‘At this point,’ says Rohit, ‘I decided I would cross the border even if I die!’

As they finally crossed the border into Poland and later boarded flights home, they sorely missed their classmates who had given up at some point in this dash for freedom, and had either returned to hostels or rushed to other border checkpoints, some of which turned out to be a wrong address.

Classes have gone online till September for now, and teachers, fearing for their own life, are often seen breaking down during lessons. When will varsities open up is an academic question – for now it is all about staying alive. We can do nothing but watch, heart in mouth, as the senseless bombings continue. Images of minors in war zones tap into our deepest, darkest parental fears; keeping the young safe is our only job! That boy who got killed in Kharkiv while out to buy bread, he is everybody's son.

Also read: Don't blame Indian students for the failings of successive governments