WHEN TRAVEL HEALS

LONG BEFORE IT WAS fashionable for Indian women to travel, my mother was traversing the length and breadth of the country. From trudging alone in buses across states, to travelling in delayed trains with three kids in tow, to getting a broken car fixed in the middle of a jungle, she had done it all. Even when her ageing body restricted her mobility, she continued to travel in ways only she could—in sleeper trains, tempo travellers, local buses, rickshaws, and what not. It was only fitting then that I chose to celebrate her life and grieve her death by travelling to a far-off land despite the pandemic that took her.

I lost my mother to COVID-19 in October 2020. Her