Travel to Bangalore during Covid times

I left Ithaca Monday at noon by bus to New York.  I took an Uber to JFK, flew to London, and then flew to Bangalore, arriving here at 5 am on Wednesday.  In order to do this I had to take two covid tests so that I would have  evidence of a negative test within 72 hours when I started the trip, and when I arrived (fig. 1 – the 2nd covid test).  For the flight to Bangalore all the passengers were issued these face covers (fig. 2) to wear while getting on and off the plane which made us all look like semi transparent Darth Vaders.  I  got to the Indian Institute of science guesthouse at 7:30 am, just in time for breakfast (fig. 3).

Leaving Ithaca was a bit overwhelming, as is arriving in Bangalore.  I can’t meaningfully expand on either of those facts right now, I guess becuase that is what it is to be overwhelmed.  

Instead I’ll mention briefly my new appreciation of the concept of a pandemic, which is the common culture, recently adopted for most of us, of wearing face masks. As I look around at the people in Bangalore, some of whom I have very little in common with and are mysterious to me, I feel surprisingly close to them becuase of the conspicuous contemporary shared experience of our masks.  We are all busy adjusting our masks as they fall off. Our lips are sweating underneath the the mask and the backs of our ears hurt where the straps attach. We are all patiently struggling to understand each others muffled voices.