'GRAN' SLAM

Age is just a number. For this Indian granny, travel is everything. This former higher secondary school teacher is busy touring the world, one destination at a time.

- APARNA NAIR

ONCE the travel bug bites, there is no return. For Lakshmi Devi C S, the bug bit her when she was a girl.

Her parents would often take her along wherever they went, as part of their work or wherever their work permitted them to. But as she found her way to adulthood, she dreamt of travels where she would move alone through the alleyways of the world.

Now in her late 50s, post-retirement as a higher secondary school teacher, the bite of the travel bug has not waned. The passion was simmering beneath the surface all these years, while she was busy taking care of home, her children and her students.

As her two boys grew, and work entered a different phase, she once again began packing bags and globetrotting to Europe, America, Asia, et al. “I have travelled around 35 countries. I had already been to the places in Kerala as a child and then across India whenever work permitted. So, I looked beyond, but this time solo. In between, there have also been outings with my husband, children, my daughter-in-law, and now, my grandkid. But they are not as frequent as my solo trips, which I plan once every three to four months,” she says, just off from a trip to Nagaland to be at the Hornbill festival.