Woman on call with son faces tense moments

Madurai: K Lakshmibai, 49, of Villapuram was on a call with her son in Ukraine on Friday afternoon, when she heard a loud explosion in the background and the call got disconnected suddenly. It was a heart-stopping moment for Lakshmibai as she could not reach her son for hours. She could heave a sigh of relied only in the evening after her son sent some pictures.
“I was gathering some details from my son over the phone around 2.30pm after petitioning the Madurai district collector Aneesh S Sekhar to bring him back from Ukraine.I heard a loud blast and the call got disconnected. I fervently tried reaching my son but could not reach him,” said Lakshmibai, a tailor. Her husband, M Kumar is a truck driver.
Her son K Sajukumar, 24, is pursuing MBA in Kyiv, the war-hit capital of Ukraine that is under attack by the Russian forces. Sajukumar who studied engineering in Ukraine for four years before the pandemic went back there for MBA about 18 months ago.
Sajukumar stays with a few other students from India. While the situation was building up for a war a few days ago he was among the many who could not afford a flight ticket that went up to ₹70,000 from about ₹40,000 to ₹45,000 during normal times. “He is now underground in his college hostel with nearly 150 other students,” Lakshmibai said.
Students are hit by shortage of supplies and the ATMs are not working. They get mobile network connectivity only when they come out of the hideouts. With many mobile phones running out of charge, the students are helping each other to reach out to their worried parents.
Meanwhile, parents who petitioned the collector lamented that their wards there are trying to reach out to the Indian embassy officials, but in vain. They also claimed that their children are landing in trouble when their parents talk to the media here.
“My son said that he and his friends are facing trouble from the authorities there for taking it up with the authorities and talking to journalists here,” a parent who had petitioned the collector told TOI.