The travel bug also mutates

Advanced age hinders accepting more than it hampers understanding. The resistance fuelled by conditioning than sound sense or fair play. My folks know there’s a contagion in the air and that it’s a mean one – after all, the chief minister of the state can’t be lying everyday on the dot at 6PM. But why would it come in the way of life as they know it they refuse to understand. Or maybe just quick to forget. Like the people in hinterland Chhattisgarh who keep lolloping across their erstwhile backyards unmindful that it is a state highway today forcing vehicles to swerve off their paths on to clumps of adjoining trees. Social isolation is understandable as long as shops are closed and buses – which ferry the maids and farmhands – aren’t plying. But difficult when lockdown restrictions are eased and the onus of responsible behaviour is on the citizens themselves. Then for them, wanting the retinue to resume duties, meet indisposed friends or just heading out is not an act of defiance or solecism but life as it should be. And not even how it was.

A lockdown trip

The first month of the lockdown was exciting, almost like living in a new place; which was how it felt like, with the usual people buzzing and fussing around you missing. Corona and Covid were the dangerous neighbourhoods the locals advised you to stay away from; masks were your weapons should you desire to venture out anyway. The extensions 2 and 3 were variously tests of endurance and patience with the ongoing 4 looking like a reward for pulling through. Well, rewards rarely consider the consequences.

Then this unwitting callousness is what keeps us going these days, has become almost a hallmark of a rising world order. It permeates into our everyday lives, manifests itself as an idiotic obduracy against giving up, changing even, our old ways, ways we are paying the price for. Notwithstanding that the ongoing birthday month of my 45^th year was supposed to have been in Europe, I confess a big chunk of my strength and resilience in coping with the lockdown comes from the travel plans I continue to make. All I have to do is look at the photograph of my motorcycle under the tailor-made cover in the parking area of my apartment in Delhi sitting in Kerala. I was riding through Ahmedabad some days after Trump’s visit, the Motera stadium and its purlieu where the infamous ‘Trump walls’ were built was more than a passing interest, and, as it turns out, when the virus had already kicked in, on my way to the Rann of Kutch.

Passing throug Ahmedabad

Dreaming about travel runs in the family. The resultant planning and actual undertaking is also a robust pastime among all of us. Before my own many expeditions into Kashmir, Leh and Ladakh, I had gone there several times in my head as a kid sitting at the dining table listening to dad’s narrations from travel books and mom’s own ideas of how snow looked and felt like. Swallowing snow was a most excitable thing to do then which turned out to constrict the throat in an ice-cold, vice-like grip. But when I motorcycled through Kashmir it felt like I had stepped into an elaborate dissection of an episode of Gul Gulshan Gulfaam with my sisters which we grew up watching.

The travel genes are uncovered on my monthly visits to Kerala from Delhi where I work. A trip to the supermarket with folks always includes one to a coffee shop slightly afar. The church on Sundays also meant a visit to a relation or a retired house staff who has repaired to the hills. Going to the hospital was also about stopping by a nursery garden or swinging by the cinemas later. The original mission was never complete unless there was some travel thrown in under some guise. The dysphoria brought about by the lockdown only served to amplify this ingrained propensity, a second nature; the suppressed travel bug began to reassert itself, maybe psychosomatically, by flaring up old symptoms.

Fire me up – Silver Bullet

My folks are fit people and my only hope is that some of their own agility and energy come my way when I am their age. My octogenarian dad still drives the car and mom who is ten years younger does everything she did during her younger days except play ring tennis – which I think is because the game itself is not played anymore. I have been privy to many doctors telling them that they are lucky. However, we got worried when her vision became a bit bleary as her high blood pressure had earlier ruptured a vessel in her eyes requiring an invasive process. A curfew pass was applied for and procured within three hours from the Kerala Police and we set out. It was during lockdown 3.

On the day of our departure, my eldest sister – who has a history of looking out for me – called me at 3 AM to enquire whether I had applied for the pass. Assuming that a confirmed appointment was enough, I hadn’t. So she went about doing the applying on my behalf, uploading the JPEG file of the message from the hospital. All of us, even today, wake up early on the morning of a journey even if it’s one to the local library in a rickety charabanc. The folks were up, earlier than usual and were preparing snacks and flasks full of coffee; hotels, even if open, served only takeaways. I cleaned and disinfected the car interiors and packed the bags with our spare clothes. The hospital was in Kochi, 80 km away, and we planned to spend the night at the sister’s house in next door Aluva.

May 23 when we made it official

After my earnest deliberations on the need to be careful, sanitising hands and keeping social distance, I hoped the truthiness of every other person as a potential carrier had dawned on my mother.

“But should I use the mask when I’m with the doctor?” She asked before getting out of the car. 

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I replied. “Anyway the doctor will be wearing one.”

As it turned out, he was, much to her relief.

The anniversary goody. Courtesy: Cakes N Treats Trove

Whole benches were marked for one seated patient. Attendants ensured people weren’t serried and washed hands after every interaction. Ropes were strung around billing counter, labs and pharmacy ensuring distance. As for my mom’s eye, the doctor assured they couldn’t be better and she could use them for whatever she wanted – as long as she was under bright lights. This, however, ruled out using WhatsApp from bed much to her consternation and dad’s relief; mom was active in many groups from alumni and church to farming and family.

My sister, a fantastic and fanatic baker, awaited us with the most sumptuous cake to celebrate an advanced wedding anniversary of our parents.