My younger sister and I have traveled the world when we were living life being single-digiters and early double-digiters. Name a place and we’ve been there. Yes, how lucky.
But, let me mention that we traveled there in our heads - minus passports and airplane tickets.
Summer vacations were long and sometimes boring. Having a Hitler of a grandmother minding our every move didn’t help our vacation excitement one bit. The parents were usually at work. We were confined to our bedroom in the afternoon lest we make “masti” and wake nana who loved her afternoon siesta.
We had to figure a way to utilise all that pent up hyperactive energy. Our modus operandi was simple. We had an old globe that was our time traveling device. We would spin the globe, close our eyes and then place one of our fingers on a spot on the globe. That was the destination to which we traveled to that afternoon. No time-space issues boggling our little minds, we reached our destination in seconds.
We had a series of The World Book Encyclopedia that we used as a guide to the place we were traveling to. Most of the places we “Globetrotted” to were completely new to us. This was the computer-less and internet-less phase of life on earth. The Encyclopedia was our Lonely Planet Guide. We even packed up a bag to take on our trip - woolens if it was a cold place and dresses and skirts if the climate was tropical.
Our travels were lovely. They were unique. They were magical. No one we knew had them. No one knew we had them. We built the place in our heads, we built the travel in our heads and we built the adventure in our heads.
Kellie, just once I want to Grobetrott with you again. Just to relive that memory, just to relive that feeling and just to relive that belief in a world beyond the world we live in.
