Notes From A Year Of Travel

When the world was locked in and the threat of COVID-19 loomed large, Priti Mahajan and her family decided to quit the city life and take to the road

- Priti Mahajan

Our life in Mumbai was a dream and we had worked very hard to make it just that—a beautiful home nestled in a leafy neighbourhood, a packed social life with friends and professions that kept us fulfilled—my husband Gaurav balancing his corporate career and I, busy with running my brand advisory. And best of all, our nine-year-old daughter Jiya, who coloured our lives with endless chatter and fun. It was a hectic life, and happily so. The pandemic descended upon us gradually—starting as faint whispers around January 2020 to a complete lockdown in late March. It was not just the concept of home confinement that was unprecedented but also the eeriness of silent neighbourhoods and the heightened anxiety over this unknown virus. When the airports reopened at the end of May, we took a quick call and the three of us took the first flight out of Mumbai and headed to our family home in Chandigarh.

Our first stop was at my brother’s farmhouse in the village of Kurali, on the outskirts of Chandigarh, where we quarantined ourselves for three weeks. Away from the city, we experienced a sense of calm even as our days became much more active. We rose at dawn and went to the fields to pick fruit and veggies for our daily meals. We walked past endless fields of watermelons and watched ambling peacocks and trundling tractors with equal amazement. We chatted with the people who worked on the farm, occasionally bathed at the well, cooked and ate in an unhurried manner and took long afternoon naps. Our lives were simple, bookended by spectacular sunsets set to the music of the gurbani wafting in from the local gurudwara.