diary of a traveler

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...

So here goes one more year of my life, 39 years full of imaginery ups & downs. I had got 1 full week of leave but no plan to enjoy the long awaited vacation, apart from the 1.5 day tour of Mumbai which was planned well in advance. Now in the morning of 21st June, I suddenly had this idea of visiting the nearest mountain from my city. Surprisingly this was my first time despite staying so close for so many years. Its just about 50 KMs from my residence so I left at 9.40 in the morning & travelled to Pavagadh in shared taxi. Shared vehicles take tightly packed people to the Machi haveli - the place at about 500 metre height - from where you can go ahead in a rope way or test your physical fitness by climbing approximately 2000 steps. Having no prior experience of hill climbing, I decided to try my luck at stairs & began the long walk to the temple of goddess Mahakali. But just in half hour of the upward journey, I knew its going to be quite a hard work to reach the top. It ...

Finally i got it - an excuse to write a blog after almost 10 years. As a trial run for the solo holiday plan that has been cooking up in my mind since past 3-4 years, a short trip to Daman was planned & executed. As is usual these days, the digestion was not up to the mark but I was determined to board the 9:30 bus to play a one-day getaway (Not Get Away!!!) game in Daman. Everything was planned but not the punctuality of the bus which turned out to be the game changer. Anyway the trip itself was a last minute exercise to pass time on the long weekend so i never expected it to be a grand success. April 18, 2019 I realized even before beginning of the journey that going by commuter bus for a holiday was a bad idea. But still I was looking forward to all the fun I could have on the tourist place, mostly famous as the Drinking Destination of Gujarat, apart from drinking by the way. So I reached Daman around 6:30 in the evening & started looking for a place to stay ...

There's nothing i can think of to write about today yet i'm writing! Maybe because i have the will and where there's a will, there are many ways to bore readers. Starting with the talk of the town - no, its not about me - its the 20-20 cricket series giving a miss of about 20+20 episodes of women's favourite soap operas! Eventhough i still love playing but I don't like watching cricket matches. If I was really interested i would have bought a TV. Instead i played a fantasy game of making my own team. I bet players involved in this entertainment festival can't hurt spectators' expectations by playing their boring natural game. So thus i lost miserably in the fantasy game!

1) i never sleep on my back, it could be any other orientation possible. 2) i don't feel comfortble while eating with a spoon. 3) i can't avoid uttering abuses while driving. 4) i want to quit smoking forever. 5) all the time i worry about the economic and social situation of my country as it will affect my comforts finally. 6) i suspect all the people around me are secret agents of one or other mafia gang and i keep studying each person to unearth the unknown mystery! In fact i stare at women too for the same purpose and they misunderstand all the time. 7) i hate wearing any kind of make up. 8) i hate to confine myself in any closed place with nobody watching because then they imagine that i must be masterbating!

"We sacrifice our lives at the border for you civilians and you don't follow the laws of the country", told an army person to me in harsh tone filled with patriotic emotions. The tower clock of the small town was showing 9. I was out on a deserted road to get a cigarette as i had exhausted my stock of cigarettes. The lonely walk through the icy air seemed to be taking hours eventhough the pan shop was just 10 minutes away. And i made it just before the shop was shut down. So thats it. I wish i had walked slowly to find the shop closed. I was shocked and embarassed when i got the lecture on my sin of smoking in public place. But deep down i felt honored for my recognition as one of very few exemplary citizens who must obey each and every law firmly to inspire common people. So what if its usual to find people smoking around pan shops ? Being distinguished from those and knowing the high opinion about myself gave me much better kick than the snatched cigarette could have gi...