diary of a traveler

Quite a long break this was after the lock down stories as there was nothing much to write about. Actually there's not much even now but still I will go for it on the last day of the year 2020. First of all, the lock down made me stop my 5 hour a day commute & it was such a great relief that the travel stays minimum even as there are no restrictions. The other important realization was that I can live on restaurant food for many days without getting ill. That proves the success of a number of immunity improving tactics I have been consciously pursuing in the past year. On the Stock market front, there's both good & bad happenings - Good that I held onto my stocks (not 100% but at least 75%) throughout the Corona crisis & almost stopped intraday trading but bad that I have become too indulged in options. In other news, the overall life remains the same - clueless & very busy doing nothing - but still not so sad which again is nice considering I don't have muc...

The journey began on a clear monsoon morning. It was an escape mission to balance work & life on the peak of the corona pandemic just a day before our home was declared quarantined.  Day 1 First day was about long drives which finished the day quickly but the evening, as usual, took its own time to be over. Day 2 A visit to the city was planned on Sunday to fight the boredom, pass time etc. but rain gods were not in favor. It rained heavily almost till afternoon making it hard to go outside at all. Day 3 Monday was exciting as I was to join the game of trades after the weekend break but still the fatigue of not going home for 2 days had begun knocking on my being. It was a very lonely day & it took ages to be over. Day 4 Tuesday came out to be a busy day at work with visit to various distant locations & came to an easy end. Day 5-6-7 So now a daily routine was in place in this isolation trip to work. I wake up around 5.30 as usual but instead of making my own tea ...

The lock down story was getting too long for one blog, so I will continue the saga in a new blog. Day 24: This extended lockdown feels like we are trapped in a bad movie & we are once again entering the movie hall after the interval. Actually our life itself has become like an art movie where the poor or middle class characters cannot afford to go out & enjoy themselves. The story starts, develops & finishes inside the 2-3 room house only. Day 25: Today marked one more visit to the city office for some administrative work. The atmosphere & feel are exactly the same as 15 days before when I had clicked images of various crossroads.  Day 30 / April 21: I have realized today that I may have messed up the numbering of the days in between, so today I am adding few dates along with the number of day. When you have almost exact routine for many days, you can't believe the calendar telling you that so many days have gone away as  the memory fails to sepa...

First reported on the last days of the year 2019 in China's Wuhan - a port city with 1.1 million population - as an unusual type of Pneumonia, the novel coronavirus infected about 3.9 lakh people & caused 17,000 deaths in less than 3 months. Here is my story from the time the authorities started taking serious measures to contain the epidemic after listening to the horror stories of countries like Iran, Italy, Spain & lastly the US. It began with a Janta Curfew on Sunday, 22nd March which was mostly very successful barring few overzealous people celebrating the end of curfew with fireworks & rallies. I spent the afternoon in successfully finishing the novel 'Inferno' which I had been reading for the past 3 months at least. Ironically the plot of 'Inferno' is virus creation by some mad scientist with the target to reduce the population of earth. Then there was the issue of how to commute to & from my faraway workplace without using ...

          The weather on the day of July 31 was actually ominous from the morning but that feeling was there somewhere deep in my soul. The realization finally struck me only when I reached on the border of the home-city late in the evening & found out that whole city is flooded & there's no vehicle to reach home.          The first sign was my bike which was submerged almost completely under water along with all other vehicles in the parking lot. City buses had stopped services few hours back, auto rickshaws had emptied their gas tanks & all gas stations were closed due to water flooding everywhere.          So after confirming that there was no way to reach home crossing 9 KM of completely flooded city, I booked a room at the nearest hotel on the highway. Adding to the misery of city, power was cut down in most parts due to water entering power stations. After dinner, I tried but could...