A hospital, an aunt and a grumpy face

Saturday 3 October 2026

After the hotel debacle we quickly left for Yasha's youngest aunt, together with Sasuma (mother-in-law) and Yasha's brother, who had come to Bhopal from Delhi. Unfortunately we had to make a quick stop on the way at a small hospital, to see what's going on with Yasha. She hasn't been feeling well for a while now.

Now you might think: shouldn't you go to your GP first and get referred? In India you don't have to. You can just walk into a hospital, private or state-run, and wait there until you're called. That can take five minutes, or a whole day. At popular state hospitals it can even be 24 hours. The doctors there are often very experienced, precisely because they see so many patients, so the queue is enormous.

Luckily for us it wasn't bad at all. After a few tests, and still not much clarity really, we got back in the car and drove on to her aunt's. There we were once again warmly welcomed with, you guessed it, lots of treats and even more treats.

Everyone happy and having a good time, but unfortunately not me. I was in a bad mood that day. All the travelling, new stimuli and new experiences every day. And then hours of listening to people I understand less than two percent of. At some point that started to irritate me. I keep ending up outside the conversation. If I want to say something, Yasha has to translate it first. By the time that's done, I also have to come up with a quick reply, and that's not exactly my strong suit. Before I know it, the conversation has moved on to something else. And if the translation doesn't come, I'm left guessing what it's about.

All in all it seemed a bit too much for a moment, as if I was about to explode. So I wasn't the best example, and certainly not towards Yasha. Luckily she noticed and tried to distract her family from my grumpy face, sitting silently on the couch staring into space. I hope it wasn't too obvious. If it was: my apologies to Yasha's family in Bhopal, I wasn't quite my best self for a while ☹️

Really, we'd both had enough: me in my head, Yasha in her body. So after an hour or so we went to our Airbnb. That one, thankfully, was clean, and there we could wonderfully unwind. We both fell asleep quickly.

A journey like this, where your expectations keep changing and your actual goal keeps getting pushed further back, sometimes takes more energy than you think. Before we've taken a single step of the Parikrama, the first challenge turns out not to be in our legs, but in our heads.