I want to begin by saying that you all are amazing people. The whole of last year, most of you kept hounding me about why I am not writing anymore. And I kept telling you that I would, as soon as I get some free time. To keep it off my mind and back, I cursed my voluminous office work & used that as a reason to not write more. That wasn’t the truth, of course. What really happened was that I didn’t feel like it. ‘Life on Weekends’ began as a storybook filled with my travels. It started in November of 2015 when I had just developed the taste of fresh air & began growing as I started traveling frantically. The more the travels, the more the stories. And hence, more entries on Life on Weekends. When all of that stopped last year, I couldn’t write. I logged on to my blog twice every month to write something from my previous experiences, to share the stories that never saw my blog, but I just could not. I missed traveling and without any new travels, there were no new blogs.

What changed?

Well, everything. After spending an amazing year in Mumbai, I am back home – in the polluted air, traffic-heavy roads & constant yelling & cursing of Delhi NCR. From the time I have shifted to Noida in January, the world hasn’t really been able to calm down both within me & out there. Shaheen Bagh, East Delhi riots & COVID-19 – no one has really been able to catch a break. A similar but less intense thing happened to me last year. One after the other, many of my trips got canceled at the last moment. At one point in time, I had a planned two-week break & an all booked trip to North East & parts of East India. I thought nothing could now stop me from taking my tally up from 17 to 20+ & come closer to the goal of completing all 28 states (29 then). And then floods happened & my already scared mind, having witnessed the flood-like water-logging of Mumbai in 2019, could not muster the courage to fly in the wake of not-so-encouraging local news. This happened multiple times last year. And I haven’t been able to catch a break since then, my kind of break.

It’s not as if I didn’t travel at all last year though. I had the most amazing trip to Kolkata and revisited Amritsar. A few small ones here and there too, but not enough to keep me happy. And certainly not enough to make me share with you all. Since then, I have been at unease because of not being able to do what I want to, in here & out there.

It must be the lock-down or the self-quarantine for past six weeks now; I have begun to feel better. Friends like you, and your conversations have uplifted my mood. My head feels lighter & calmer. And I am really thankful for having such great friends & readers. When everything comes back to normal, I might begin travelling again. Probably not at the same speed or with the same craziness, but I will travel. And until that happens, which could be very long from now, I am happy revisiting my old travels – the stories I were a part of, the memories I made & the life I lived.

To the purest of joys that’s there in treading the mountains, lying by the beaches, smelling the flowers along the way, getting stranded on the road & keeping it together at high altitudes!

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