'It's not the bombs that scare us. It's survival': A month stranded in West Asia's war zone

Up there, somewhere past the midpoint of the sky, the hum of engines filled my ears. Flight AI223 from Delhi carried me to Doha in late February—without warning of how long that journey would stretch. In fact, what was planned as a short journey turned out to be a long haul that would leave me stranded for a month in the middle of a war zone.

I have always detested flying. So instead of calm, I carried pages—two books that had lingered on my reading bucket list for a while. As clouds blurred the window, I opened one I had avoided for years: Viktor Frankl’s Man's Search for Meaning—his words, forged in the horrors of Nazi camps, did not speak only of suffering but also of something sharper: meaning.

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At that height of 35,000 feet, his thoughts cut deeper than altitude. He wrote that people did not collapse in concentration camps simply from the lack of medicine but from the absence of hope. At the time, it was just an idea. By the end of this journey, it would become a compass.

Calm before the disruption

Doha looked exactly as one expects a Gulf capital to be—clean, immaculate, polished, efficient, ultramodern, and elite. Towers rose along the waterfront, their skyline dotted with shimmering engineering marvels of multiple shapes and sizes, reflecting both ambition and precision. At first glimpse, it felt as if the city was not only designed for function but for pure composure. The city felt balanced, almost rehearsed.

We moved through its pristine promenades to ultra-luxurious malls, with February 28 marked quietly as our return date. Bags were packed and plans were set, our minds already engrossed in an inward journey back home.

Then history intervened.

I had reported on Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, when the United States struck Iran’s nuclear sites under Donald Trump. But this time, the situation felt different. Our return coincided with another escalation—Operation Epic Fury—launched by the US alongside Israel against Iran.

Within minutes, the ripple effects spread across the Gulf. Iran retaliated. Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia—one by one, they were pulled into the spillover. Airspace shut abruptly. Flights were grounded, ours included.

What began as a short visit turned into something else entirely. Safety alerts cut through the silence. Nights echoed with distant blasts. Days stretched heavy and uncertain.

It felt completely surreal to think of a situation in which our family was stranded in a foreign land being attacked by Iran amidst the escalating war. You have no way to escape or anything else to do, apart from having hope. I drew on Frankl all through while being in the middle of a war zone. I never planned for it, but I was destined for this.

According to Frankl, when everything external comes crashing down, survival depends on hope. Getting stranded was a completely distinct psychological shift. It wasn't a matter of logistics; it was about relinquishing our agency and movement, which we often take for granted, and experiencing a sense of restriction. This feeling triggers the anxiety of suspended life, where you are neither where you want to be nor able to move towards it.

Then came the evacuation notices around US embassy areas, just 12 km away from our place—slipped under the door like a secret.

The first explosions

It started with alerts on Feb 28th. Phones screamed in unison with urgent national warnings flashing across screens. Stay indoors. Avoid glass. Remain alert.

Then came the sound.

Explosions tore through Doha’s sky as Iran struck Al Udeid, the largest US airbase in Qatar, barely 42 kilometers away from where I was living with my family in Doha.

Boom after boom followed. Windows trembled. Buildings shuddered. Birds scattered in mid-air, disoriented. People stood frozen in disbelief, staring out, leaning from their windows to locate the smoky streaks of interception, looking into the sky and trying to process and make sense of what had just begun.

War, once distant and abstract, now sat outside our window. For me as a journalist, war was not just a headline—it was happening just outside the window.

For years, I had covered conflicts from behind a desk—India-Pakistan tensions and global flashpoints—writing as an observer. But this was different. The distance collapsed. The story became immediate and physical. Real.

Life in suspension

Everything we had planned unravelled in a single turn. This dawned on me and reaffirmed my faith in what I have been pontificating ever since COVID-19 struck us. Perhaps we all live with a heightened sense of faith in modern lives. On face value, life feels stable because we trust systems—tickets, apps, confirmations, QR codes, etc. But conflict exposes how fragile that stability really is. One disruption, one rupture, and everything collapses and is exposed.

Weeks passed.

From our eighth-floor apartment, we began to hear it all—missiles, drones, distant strikes on oil facilities. Each explosion traveled across the desert air, sharp and unmistakable. Time stopped moving forward.

Days of fear, despair and alerts

Each morning brought fresh anxiety.

Nights were worse—safety alerts breaking sleep, followed by deep, distant roars, making window panes and glasses shudder with the bombastic echoes of interception. In those moments, Frankl’s words returned—not about resisting reality, but about enduring it.

What stood out was Qatar’s response.

The country’s alert system worked with zero error; every alarm followed an attack, and every alert was followed up by another saying the elevated threat had been eliminated and the situation was back to normal.

It was a strange kind of stability—predictable, even under threat.

Escalation continues

Then came March 4. The US struck Iran’s naval vessel, IRIS Dena, in the Indian Ocean after its deployment near Visakhapatnam. The escalation was unmistakable. Each new development made reopening airspace less likely. The sense of uncertainty deepened for us, as it watered down even the slightest chances of airspace opening for us to travel back home.

Even amid all this, Holi was celebrated—informally, without planning. A brief, human pause. Simple, yet one that left indelible imprints on the mind—minimalistic and closer to family.

A week in a war zone

The days that followed felt like living inside a conflict zone. Morning alerts became routine. Evacuations were ordered near sensitive zones. Hours later, missiles followed, shaking walls and rattling glass. From our apartment window, we could see Al Corniche.

With anxiety becoming overwhelming, sometimes my mother and I stood by the window, watching the city carry on. Even in war, life continued. Ramadan rhythms persisted.

Hope appeared quietly, unannounced but steady.

Escalation peaks

March 13 marked the peak.

Strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island triggered some of the loudest explosions we had experienced. The force felt close, almost physical. And yet, outside, life continued. Families walked. Malls stayed open. Restaurants remained full. Conversations revolved around war, but survival was the deeper concern.

Cab drivers I spoke to while traveling talked of falling incomes—daily earnings collapsing from 500–600 riyals to barely 100. One cab driver put it plainly: It’s not the bombs that scare us. It’s survival.

On short walks outside, I would see a few foreigners gathered, lighting cigarettes. Smoke curled as they looked up at the clouds. Their conversations drifted—bombs falling, rockets intercepted, explosions in the sky. They stood there for a while, speaking in low tones.

As a journalist, I kept close track of all geopolitical developments and relayed updates to my family. Ironically, it was the first time ever I saw my family so deeply engaged and engrossed in geopolitical news.

Every update prompted questions about what had happened and what might come next. That is what war does; it makes distant events feel deeply personal. I plunged into a state of mind where I measured time not by date but by developments such as alerts, escalations, and silences.

Waiting to leave

A stranded friend from India added me to a WhatsApp group.

I joined a WhatsApp group—“Indians Stranded in Qatar." Over 60 of us shared updates, exploring escape routes. One option involved traveling over 100 kilometers by road to the Salwa-Abu Samra Saudi border crossing, then flying out from King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

It was risky—paperwork, congestion, uncertainty. Some made it. Messages appearing in the group—“Got back”—were met with jubilation and a bombardment of congratulations. These two words in the group upped the hopes of many and carried relief for everyone still waiting.

Days turned into weeks. Nearly a month passed.

Eventually, limited repatriation flights resumed. We secured seats on one bound for Amritsar. Even then, uncertainty lingered—reroutes, cancellations, last-minute changes.

One day before the return flight from Doha, we went out for dinner at a friend's place in the heart of Doha City, engrossed in conversation while having lip-smacking snacks. An alert beeps through all phones at once; a few minutes after the alerts and sounds of boom, the clarification came in that Iran attacked Ras Laffan, Qatar’s largest LNG gas plant, causing substantial damage. This time it was a big escalation.

The next day, gripped with uncertainty amidst fear of further escalation, we headed for Hamad International Airport. Our Doha–Amritsar flight was scheduled for 10 am. Then it was delayed to 12. Then, at 2:20 pm. With every passing hour, the anxiety deepened. Was this another escalation? Another closure of airspace? I walked up to a flight attendant and asked what was causing the delay. Her response was calm: “We’re waiting for a landing slot in Amritsar.”

For the first time that day, it felt like the delay was logistical—not geopolitical. It was a small but powerful reassurance. Relief came quietly.

The return and what remains

When the plane finally lifted, comfort didn’t come immediately. Turbulence held us in tension for a while longer. For the next 30 minutes, as the aircraft cut through tense air corridors—over the UAE and across Oman—we remained on edge, acutely aware of where we were.

And then, slowly, we crossed into calmer skies. That was the moment it hit us—we were finally leaving the war behind. The war was no longer part of my immediate reality.

What remained was something deeper—a quiet gratitude and an unexpected attachment to Doha. A city that stayed composed even as chaos pressed in.

This journey didn’t just disrupt plans. It changed my perspective.

Control is fragile. Stability is relative. Distance is deceptive. Human minds, I feel, despite a plethora of vulnerabilities, are capable of adaptation, and hope is not optional; when everything else falls away, hope is what endures. And through it all, Frankl’s words stayed.

Hope is what carries you back home.