It’s a bird, it’s superman, it’s a plane!

“Mamma, it’s been such a long time since we were on a plane. Can we go somewhere, anywhere on spring break?”

My daughter, wailing, post-pandemic, like most of the planet.

I needed no further prodding and started Googling, pulling out well-worn Lonely Planets and opened flight and acco booking apps.

We were on the terrace surrounded by the blooms of spring; I had my iced coffee and I was all set to plan our travel. Dot skated madly in circles around the gazebo while I stretched on my armchair. But I, too, was fed up with armchair travel and was ready for the real thing.

“We can drive to…”

“I don’t want to drive. I want to go on a plane! We drove to Coorg last year. Twice!” Zip.

“Oh yeah, so let’s look outside Karnataka state. Beach or hill?”

“Beach. Goa.” Zap.

“But it will be hot there now. And there are still some restrictions.” (This happened last month. No restrictions now.)

“Ok, hill then.” Zoom.

“But we’ll have to drive there…”

“Ok, whatever. I just want to go to the airport. We used to go so often. I miss that. We can fly somewhere and fly back.” Wheeeee.

“Without even stepping out of the airport?”

“Yeah, like Ammamma used to explore Madras on the bus.”

“Well, I want to go to a place and explore. I’m not interested in the flight, especially long ones. And can you step zipping around? It’s making me dizzy.”

“But I love zipping. And I love looong flights. Can we go outside India? Remember when we went to Singapore, Dubai, Thailand, Hong Kong… Australia was the best. Such long flights.”

“We need visas to travel outside and that takes time to plan. See, it’s getting cloudy. Come in and sit down, na.”

“It’s fine. I don’t want to sit now. There are countries where Indians can travel without getting a visa before. I know.”

“You know too much. Let’s look at that later. There must be some place in India where we can go. Please come in, it’s getting so windy.”

“It’s fun!”

So I glared at her from time to time, and threw out travel suggestions in between glares. Animal sanctuaries? Monuments? Cities in faraway states? At the back of my mind, I had to keep security and comfort in mind, as I would be traveling alone with young dot.

“I think I got it!”

“Yay! I felt a few drops now.”

She came in and sat down, started pulling out her skates. I started checking flights, rooms.

“The perfect place to travel. This has been a dream destination my whole life really.”

The heavens parted, and the rain poured.

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Where have we decided to go, any guesses? Q. not open for those in the know. Click on the Follow button to join us on our post-pandemic adventure. I’ll post a daily update.

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