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.

Has there been a gain from this movement back and forth? Sure, it’s been stressful adjusting all the time, initially for me and then for my family. I have tried my hand at Kannada, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil. My host at a hospital in Mumbai where I recently went for a hospital assessment, requested me not to kill the Marathi language, when I ventured forth with my feeble knowledge. Agreed, I am not a great learner of languages, and I have finally laid my gun down, settling for Hindi, English and Bengali, in my very own City of Joy. But, it has been good to see many different cultures and meet many different people from all over the country, many of whom I can call my friends. Above all, it has given me a good idea of what cosmopolitan India is all about.

So , while I settle into the City of Joy and delve back into  Egg Rolls, enjoy the Saraswati Puja after ages , take in the joys of the city I had skipped for so long, I can still relax in the satisfaction that though stressful and at time chaotic, my journey across the nation has not been in vain. And while my position as a hospital assessor takes me across the different geographies of this nation, I do hope that the learning was worth the pain, of adjusting and readjusting, settling and resettling.

Long live the idea of India united.

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