FULL CIRCLE

The more things change, the more they remain the same,

- Sandip Roy

As a young bride, my mother travelled to London on a P&O liner, the ship passing through the Suez Canal, so narrow she could see the washing hang on the clotheslines of the houses alongside. Thanks to my father's job with British Rail, they travelled all over Europe by train. Years later, in Kolkata, I marvelled at the pictures of my sari-clad mother on a train in France, at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, or high up in Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps. Those travel stories were the fairy tales I grew up with.

For us, the highlight of the year was always planning the big vacation. There was no internet, no email, no travel apps. Train tickets required queuing at the rail office. Hotel bookings needed trunk calls and telegrams. Depending on the destination, long-lost relatives would be dug out of the woodwork. If we go to Shimla, we should write to my Shimla Aunt, my mother declared. I didn't even know she had a Shimla Aunt.