As the euphoria over the airlifting settles to ground level, many of the 200 evacuees trickling home on the A-I's special flight from Jakarta on Monday night have faulted Air India for insisting on US dollar payment for procuring tickets to fly back home. They have also accused the Indian embassy in Jakarta of partiality in helping only those Indians whose evacuation was sponsored by their multinational employers.

The Jakarta-Singapore-Chennai-Mumbai flight AI 431 was scheduled to arrive at 8.50 pm, but got delayed and reached Mumbai from Chennai only at 11.30 pm. While the majority of passengers embarked at Chennai, only 30 landed in Mumbai.

"Almost all the banks and Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) in Jakarta have been burned down in the frenzy of violence over the last ten days, and we hardly had any cash on hand. When we approachedthe Air-India office, the officials bluntly told us to pay for the ticket fare in US dollars. Naturally, we do not keep dollars at home and had to literally beg from friends to raise the money," said a disturbed Mahendra Hingorani, a businessman based in Jakarta since five years.

"Even the authorities at the Indian embassy seemed more interested in getting things done for a couple of multinationals which wanted to evacuate the families of their employees to India. As an individual, I had a real tough time," Hingorani added.

However, Air-India deputy director Jitendra Bhargava said nobody should expect to be flown free. "It's common sense. They bought the ticket and we flew them to India... what more do they want? We only demanded the fare in a currency acceptable to us in a particular country. You can't expect us to fly them for free," he said.

Recalled Manu Hira, who flew in with her two children, "Our godown was burned down and we have been rendered penniless. But the Air-India officials would hearnothing of it. Luckily, we have some good friends there who helped us out by loaning us US dollars to buy air tickets."

"Almost the entire city of Jakarta has been reduced to ashes, and with a students' rally planned on Wednesday, followed by Indonesia's Independence Day on May 25, we fear that the situation can only worsen. I really don't know if we will ever return," she added.

But many clarified that they had been by and large exempted from the violence, which has been directed at the ehtnic Chinese population. And the spouses and children of employees of Taxmacro and Indorama had no complaints, as their evacuation was sponsored by the companies.

Said Pratibha Patil, whose husband is an employee of the MNC Taxmacro, "The company had made great arrangements and had chartered the aircraft from Air-India with the help of the Indian embassy. Everything was done within ten hours. My husband has stayed back, and will return only if the need arises."

Echoed Neetu Gopani, whose returned to Mumbai with herson, while her husband, also from Taxmacro, stayed back: "We had absolutely no problems, as both the embassy and the company had made great arrangements."