Now just like most enthusiastic travellers, words can never adequately describe the deep disappointment we felt when the Covid pandemic struck the world in the beginning of 2020 and we had to cancel our upcoming holiday. Of course, no sooner had we cancelled the holiday that we started planning the next one. After all, the pandemic wasn’t going to last forever was it? It would probably be over and well behind us before we even realized it. You know, I really would have laughed at our delusional optimism had the subject been anything but travel. After all, travel is no laughing matter! Anyway there we were, happy in our oblivion, sitting at the dining table, our laptops open in front of us, checking out countries with the least number of cases, hopeful, expectant. Little did we know back then that let alone boarding a flight and checking into a hotel, stepping out of the house was going to become a herculean task in the months to come.
It didn’t take us long to realize that the pandemic was here to stay, besieging the world in a way that we had never imagined in our wildest dreams. Locked up in our homes, the phone and social media were our only connections to the world outside. Netflix was an escape, take-out a reprieve. Work was a distraction that was welcomed. Travel of course became a dwindling dream. There were days when I yearned to touch the metal lock of an aircraft seatbelt, longed to smell the aroma of freshly brewed coffee at a hotel breakfast buffet. The travel magazines that I bought and read regularly lent a bittersweet experience. On one hand they reminded me of a happier time, on the other they seemed to mock me for what was obviously out of my reach. I would sit in my lounge for hours in the evenings, nursing a lone glass of wine, running my fingers over the glossy pictures, remembering, reminiscing, longing. I’d pore over the stories like I’d never done before, reading, savouring, trying to vicariously experience. I’d close my eyes, allow myself to float away, away from the concrete jungle I lived in, away from the four walls of my Gurgaon apartment. One day I’d imagine myself exploring the Sound of Music house in Vienna, another day I’d be soaking up the last of the evening sun on a Balinese beach. One evening I’d be sashaying to Tango music on the streets of Montevideo, another I’d be rushing around a mall in Dubai trying to pick up the best deals. Then there were evenings when my husband and I would sit down with a bunch of photographs and a bottle of wine. We’d remember the musical nights in Goa or losing our way amidst the cobbled streets of Old Town Ibiza. We’d laugh hysterically at our excited anticipation in Bangkok over the prospect of going for an adult show and how we had a raging fight in our hotel room in Singapore after 5 days of non-stop shopping. Some of the memories were starting to fade just a wee bit, enough for us to debate over what had really happened. Others were so vividly clear that it felt as though they had happened just yesterday and I could literally close my eyes and transport myself there. I could feel the Mediterranean breeze from my balcony on the Costa Fascinosa, taste the fresh Salmon at the farmer’s market in Finland, smell the maple trees in the woods in Darjeeling. Sometimes the sense of being transported was so strong, so lucid, it was almost like an out-of-body experience!