Since the declaration of Coronavirus (Covid 19) pandemic, I have been mostly working from home. Since a majority of my work is done on my laptop, it somehow did not feel all that different. But stray thoughts kept coming to me. Fears for personal safety and safety of family members with health conditions. I call them compulsively to make sure they are following precautions. I worry about handwash, soaps, sanitizers, and medicines disappearing from the shops. I compulsively refresh the Facebook feed, where I follow a host of news outlets who keep updating the latest information- facts and figures from all over the world. These numbers are slowly and surely creeping up close to my geographical location and those of my loved ones. Insidiously it seems. And endless WhatsApp forwarded messages- some fake and some true.

I often think wistfully about past travel experiences now. My husband and I love traveling to new places each year mostly within India and re-visit some favorite ones throughout the year. I fear that travel will be severely restricted in future. 

It is one of those activities that fill me with so much pleasure and joy that it is physically suffocating to think that it may be curtailed significantly in the near future. I did realize that I was extremely lucky to plan and travel for the past several years. I never took it for granted even then. Even the most seemingly mundane trip within the same town or city has excited me since forever it seems. Does it have to do something with the itinerant part of my early childhood in an army family, traversing the Indian subcontinent in the swaying trains...sleeping on the top berth, hearing the coolies and vendors at night time...and surreptitiously eavesdropping on a neighbor's conversations before ultimately befriending the entire family...every one sitting close to each other.

I wonder how India can manage social distancing where people often live and work closely- cheek to jowl; where almost everything can be easily experienced, except solitude. Some people show the usual fatalistic attitude by saying, 'what has to happen will happen'. Others rush to scold them to say that they are endangering others. 

Amidst these dire conversations, my mind floats to some of the scenes from our annual trip---a small isolated restaurant en route to Jaisalmer in Pokhran (the site for the first nuclear tests in India) where our car broke down and we are served by a friendly, smiling short person andwe taste cashew-laden ker saangri for the first time on a pleasantly sunny December afternoon. Ker Saangri is made of dried berries and is a suitable delicacy for a desert state. And to top it we are served the most delicious milky tea (chai). We get to know that the owners of the place are Muslims and in our travel experience in India, they make the best tea. So, we order it twice which delights our cherubic waiter.  Being chai aficionados, our most delicious experiences have been in the state of  Gujarat so far, where we attribute it to the smooth and flavourful milk there.

Another scene - Arriving in Bidar Fort (north Karnataka) near sunset and racing to see the wide expanse of it  and engaging in some brilliant photography and then to a nearby Sufi shrine, where women are not allowed to enter but huddle together in black robes outside at the door praying fervently, as men enter with insouciance.

All the irritations experienced in these trips seem so rosy now. The painful throat infection at the end of the Rajasthan trip; the arguments with the driver; the extreme chill in the air as we trudge up the steep hills in Shimla on a December day (this was part pleasure and part pain).

There are a lot of immediate worries related to the pandemic, but this curtailing of future travel seems claustrophobic and evokes in me sadness and a loss of control. I assuage my fears by watching travel documentaries on the TV. Seeing elephants at Jim Corbett Park on a TV channel yesterday buoyed my spirits briefly.

The aftermath of this pandemic may be catastrophic for the economy with no room or budget to plan for traveling. But I will continue to hope and plan the next one at least in my mind to begin with. However, hackneyed it may sound, the current state of affairs will make the already-so-gorgeous activity of traveling in future even more delightful. So delightful that the heart can barely contain itself.

I think about these things with some guilt. It also feels frivolous as the more immediate need is to ensure that people are not affected by the virus and things can go back to normal or what was normal earlier. But when will that happen? Uncertainty prevails.

Bhopal

December 22, 2019

We landed at Bhopal airport around 3:45 pm. When the plane started the descent for the airport, I was thrilled to see a huge expanse of water just close to the landing strip. I would learn later that Bhopal is also called 'Jheelon ka sheher' or 'City of Lakes'. There are so many of them. And they are big ones. We were told that earlier some of these lakes were dried up last year because of scarce rains in the past few years. There was a lot of rainfall this year and all the lakes were filled up. Lucky for us!

As soon as we came out of the airport, I was again pleasantly surprised to see mountains in the distance. One of them had an imposing building that was awash in the setting winter sun colours and another mountain had a temple-like structure at the top. The driver told us that the former was a CRPF building and the latter a 'pracheen' (ancient) Jain temple. I felt exhilarated. This is pure joy. The start of a trip. Top of the world feeling!

Impressions of Bhopal - December 22 & 23, 2019

Pinkish evening skies. Lakes bordering the roads. 

Tajul Masjid in the evening. Aesthetically lit domes and minarets of masjid where the men were rushing for their evening prayers. An older woman clad in black burkha pleaded for some alms outside the masjid. A few 'non-believers' like us tentatively circled the water tank and expansive courtyard. I was relieved to see another woman in the distance; relief at not flouting any law of the place. The streets leading to this largest mosque in India (and among the largest in Asia) had ancient looking soulful buildings and security forces installed at multiple places. The driver said that the security is always prevalent near 'their' prayers as 'they' get together and riots can happen any time. (Probably) bigoted driver.

The large lakes with a statue of Raja Bhoj in it. Boats bobbing in the waters. Speed boats and cruises are also there. Families cluster around the lakes. We take a long walk along the periphery of the lake the first night of our trip. Groups of teenage boys in a photography frenzy. Many in a selfie frenzy. Another group is probably making Tik-Tok videos as they make exaggerated postures for the 'cameraman' and giggle shyly when we see them. 

The next evening we see the open zoological park (Van Vihar National Park), which has barricades for the big cats (tigers and leopards), bears, alligators, and turtles while the other less-ferocious and less-mobile animals have the freedom to go anywhere. The big cats move around lethargically as humans run around the barricade frantically searching for them laughing nervously. The unique thing of this park is that almost all of it is facing the big lake. So a tiger who climbs up a hill in his large enclosure can have a view of the waters. I remark that at least the animals may not be depressed here as they can see the lake unlike the other zoos.