Travel Nama

Of late, I had been incessantly having this dream where I entered my grandpa’s room, inaccessible to anyone, and would be reading his collection of books when a dark black hand would pull me out. Since I was 7, I always pestered my mother to allow me to enter his room and read his books, but she carelessly refused. But now I was 12, old enough to understand the truly complicated intricacies of life, thus I took upon myself this mission to enter the restricted arena, come what may.
So when mother told me that we would be leaving that night for grandpa’s house, I was thrilled. Surreptitiously, I gathered a couple of things which would be helpful in my escapade and hid them in the suitcase. We reached grandma’s home at midnight and due to regular power cuts in the town, we tracked our way from the main gate to my mother’s room with the help of the lantern. On our way we passed my grandpa’s room which had a threatening huge lock hanging on it. I stared at that repulsive lock and smirked knowing how unaware it was that this time I was well equipped with bob pins to open it. Three days passed but every time I stepped close to the room, my uncle would command me to move back .Then one momentous day, my uncle made a sudden plan to go on a safari with his friends. I almost squealed with joy. As the night approached, my heart started beating faster and faster. As the clock struck twelve, I stealthily tiptoed towards my grandpa’s forbidden room and opened the lock and entered. I lit my dad’s cigarette lighter which burned for a second or two and I saw huge shelves lined against the walls stacked with big fat books. As I moved across the room, all of a sudden, a fat photo album hit my head. My pupils dilated in amazement when I saw a familiar face beaming at me in the photos.It was my handsome grandfather and as I scanned carefully through the album I realized it was divided into sections each pertaining to a different city of India and his travels across that place. As I flipped the pages, I realized he had traveled almost every city in India. There were photographs of him taken at the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, and a hundred other places. But as I flipped forward, I saw empty pages in the photo album. There were empty sections with the heading – France, Italy, among many others. That’s when I realized that I had set upon myself another mission of traveling all across Europe and realizing his dream. I’ll never forget the day that transformed me and my life completely.