It is hard to write about a vacation when most people resent you for having taken it. It is safe to say, though, that I have returned from London with a deep appreciation for clotted cream and a vengeful disdain towards Mumbai’s public transportation. In fact, I have developed such a hatred towards it that I suspect it will never go away, which is fair because one must come away from one’s travel with a new perspective towards life.
I guess after a point of time all travel feels the same — it tends to exhaust your capacity for your own routine life. Of course, I may be wrong, as I frequently am, and there is very little need for travel influencers to get incensed at my observation that they won’t even read. I’m not ungrateful, no I am not. I think the more one travels, the less appetite one has for one’s own homebound, clockwork life. This is not exactly an issue because your homebound life is like your desi mother — no matter how old you get, how much you travel, how many experiences you gather — it still undermines your ability to get your life together.
Speaking of parents, I guess I’m just going to end up being the daughter that takes one parent after another to the doctor. I know there’s a poignant message somewhere here about how hard it is for us to watch our parents getting old, but quite honestly I contemplate on my mortality every day as well. I am deeply made aware of it as I use Mumbai roads to get to work. Some day this nightmare should end and it is only going to be with my passing away ‘coz do you even know how much road corruption money the BMC makes? Like hell they’re ever going to fix them. I’m in this for the long (agonising) haul.
But I’ve started to adjust to my homebound life quite well. I’ve written close to 26 postcards to various friends. Some of whom are so close and have shown so little interest in my whereabouts for the last 5 weeks that I had to use all the postcard space to just tell them how I have been. I’ve also very consistently finished reading a book I bought for myself when I was trapped in Kings Cross and didn’t know where to go. To round off everything nicely, I have also lost all self-respect for reacting badly to everyday situations back home. I’m quite disappointed in myself. I mean how could I expect my commute to work to become easier, or my mother to be healthier and free of illness, or even friends to hug me a while longer and ask me “Have you been happy? Have you been okay?”
What is wrong with me? Seriously.
amarllyis 