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Ghanaian footballer, who slept in an Indian airport for over two months during the country’s Coronavirus lockdown, has finally left the hub.
Randy Juan Muller, who turned 23 this week, flew to India on November 7 last year for a six-month contract to play soccer for ORPC Sports Club in Kerala, south India.
Randy Juan Muller (circled)
As the Coronavirus pandemic spread, Muller booked a flight home to Ghana for March 30. A week before the flight, he took a train to Mumbai.
“I heard about the possibility of a lockdown in India … so I came to Mumbai to stay in a dormitory so I wouldn’t miss my flight,” Muller said.
When he arrived in Mumbai on March 21, however, he was low on cash and struggled to find a room.
“I didn’t know anyone [in Mumbai] so I saw some policemen and told them my story. They told me to go to the airport,” said Muller.
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Three days later, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown — all international flight arrivals and departures were canceled.
Muller decided to sleep in the departures hall of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport until international flights resumed. But the lockdown kept being extended.
“People in the airport were very helpful. They gave me food and helped me a lot,” Muller said. “One security guard even replaced my phone after it was damaged.”
Muller called the Ghanaian Consulate in Mumbai but says he was told there was little they could do during the lockdown.
“I never got worried because I knew one day I’d get home,” he says. “I tried to stay strong and motivated …There are things in life you can never change.”
Aaditya Thackeray, president of Mumbai District
Football Association assisted Muller
Muller’s ordeal came to an end in early June, after he made an appeal on Twitter, at the suggestion of a security officer.
A local journalist who saw his tweets shared his appeal for help and tagged Aaditya Thackeray, the state’s tourism and environment minister, who is also president of the Mumbai District Football Association.
Thackeray is also the son of the state’s Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
Within hours, Muller was taken from the airport to a hotel where he will stay until he was able to take a flight home.
This is more like the 2004 American comedy drama, ‘The Terminal’, which is about an Eastern European man who becomes stuck in New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport terminal when he is denied entry into the United States and at the same time is unable to return to his native country because of a military coup.
The Terminal, co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg — starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci — is not so much based on a true story but it is inspired by a true story of Merhan Nasseri who lived at Charles DeGaulle Airport from August 1988 to August 2006, until he was taken from the terminal due to an illness.
Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) in movie The
Terminal
In the movie, Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a traveler from the fictional nation of Krakozhia, arrives at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport only to discover that his passport is suddenly no longer valid.
The United States no longer recognizes Krakozhia as an independent country after the outbreak of a civil war, and Viktor is not permitted to either enter the country or return home as he is now stateless.
The movie The Terminal
Because of this, the US Customs and Border Protection seizes his passport and airline ticket and with no other choice, Viktor settles in at the terminal with only his luggage and a Planters peanut can.
Viktor goes into a renovation zone where a gate will be renovated, and makes it his home and befriends and assists airport employees and travelers.
Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson
He survived through doing menial work and been hired by an airport contractor and paid under the table after he impulsively remodeled a wall at the renovation zone.
One day, he confides in a flight attendant he befriended by showing her what was contained in the Planters peanut can — a copy of the ‘A Great Day in Harlem’ photograph.
Coronavirus alert
The picture belonged to his late father, a jazz enthusiast, who had discovered the famous portrait in a Hungarian newspaper in 1958.
Viktor’s father had vowed to collect the autographs of all 57 of the musicians featured on it but he died before he could get the last one, from tenor saxophonist Benny Golson.
Viktor had flown to New York to do just that in memory of his father.
Coronavirus alert
After nine months in the terminal, his friends wake Viktor up with the news that the war in Krakozhia had ended, and he got a green stamp, allowing him to leave the airport.
Viktor then went to the New York hotel where Benny Golson was performing and finally collects the last autograph in memory of his father.
He then gets into a taxi, heads back to the John F. Kennedy Airport where he took the next flight out heading for home — the fictional nation of Krakozhia.
Coronavirus Alert
The Ghanaian footballer, Juan Muller’s contract with ORPC Sports Club in Kerala, expired but his ordeal hasn’t put him off from returning to India.
“I left home to feed home,” he told the media there. “If I got another contract, I would love to come back.”