Journeys across chequerboards
Travels are like journeys across chequerboards. Movements across vast expanses of black and white, with some shades of grey in between. Mangalore. Hyderabad. Kolkata. Delhi.Pune. Chennai. The names resonate across the alleys of time, and bring with them, memories. Of rain-swept Mangalore beaches. Of Hussain Sagar Lake at Hyderabad, lights glimmering in the evenings. Colonial mansions and churches in old Kolkata. Crumbling ruins and magnificient modern buildings of Delhi. Rain-swept Pune and its hilly surroundings. The ECR ( East Coast Road) and Kovalam Beach on the outskirts of Chennai. The co-travellers changed, but the travel remained constant. And finally, it ends back at Kolkata, from where my journey in and out of the city began in 1995, when I moved out to Medical College at Mangalore. It is great to see that the city has changed for the better, and some of the stresses and strains of life that I had been accustomed to, as a kid, have been mitigated