Tamal Bhattacharjee, a teacher from the northern suburbs of Kolkata, managed to get past armed Taliban fighters, and thousands of people, mostly Afghans, who thronged the road leading to the Hamid Karzai International Airport. Tamal was among the 168 people who were evacuated by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on a C-17 transport aircraft that touched down at the Hindon Air Force Station in Ghaziabad, near New Delhi, on August 22.