Priyanka Gupta

About a decade ago, I graduated with a B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IITD). In 2016, five years into an evolving investment banking career, I quit my job. Now I’m an itinerant writer. On my blog On My Canvas I write about alternative ways of living and exploring. My aim is to live by asking why rather than blindly following someone before me. And while I’m out challenging the norms, or if we may say, looking at things more with curiosity rather than habit or tradition, I share and write what I experience and learn. I read a lot of science and books (and science books), too. Personal growth ideas, cruising through the choppy waters of our emotional selves, writing tips, cultural biases, meditations from individual books, and travel narratives — you will find them all on my blog. Welcome!

Saying Goodbye to Myanmar at Mount Popa Bagan

A Monkey-Filled Hill of Myanmar – Mount Popa, Bagan

Mount Popa near Bagan was my last stop in Myanmar. Just before my friend and I were to take a bus from Bagan to Yangon to fly back to India, we decided that we should see this 1518-meter high extinct volcano on the outskirts of Bagan.

How could we not go when every travel blog about Bagan spoke of the Popa mountain. And the pictures of the panoramic view from Mt Popa looked ethereal.

While we couldn’t see something even close to those gorgeous sunset hues that Google promised, for the sky was cloudy that day, we did have a unique, eye-opening experience all the way from Bagan to the Mount Popa volcano.

GIOIA_E_VOGLIA_DI_VIVERE_-_Olio_su_tela_60_x_50_-_di_GaetanoartstMinale a smiling girl in a field of yellow bright sunflowers

Though we all want to make someone happy or smile, we get so caught up in our work, life, and travel we don’t bother to be any nicer or do beyond what is expected of us.

I am no different, and I openly talk about how my husband and I loosened up on being sweet to each other during the beginning of the lockdown. But then we realized, hey, now we only got each other. We can work together from home, food is still abundant, and the world is quiet. We should sing “don’t worry, be happy” all day (most of the pandemic affects hadn’t hit us by then).

A Journey Into the Streets of the Village of Dala, Yangon

One fine day in December, I was cycling around in the Dala village near Yangon in Myanmar. Across the river from Yangon, Dalla Township is located on the southern bank of the Yangon river.

Though the Dala township comprises of some 50 villages, bounded by the Yangon river in the north and east, the Twantay Canal in the west, and Twantay Township in the south, I was in the main Dalla village. And I was not alone.

It was one of those rare tours that I sometimes convince myself to take in foreign lands. With Unchartered Horizons Myanmar, I was set to have a local experience in Dala, a hamlet on the banks of Yangon river.

The lockdown continues. Bengaluru, India.

On one April morning.

Hello Friends,

How have you been?

I have been juggling with writing, admin work, personal stuff, cleaning, laundry, cooking, and staying updated with the news.

Different news clips catch my husband’s and my attention even though we both scroll Google News. We share and collate our information at the end of the day during dinner unless he decides to escape to the bathroom. (For context you would need to read the first part of these pandemic chronicles. I can only hint that he avoids a dinner of raw eggplants and bottle gourd still in one piece.)

Only one morning did we see a video on COVID statistics else we prefer to not distract ourselves at the beginning of the day.

near+Machu+Picchu++lost+city+incas+cusco+andes+mountains+peru+south+america.jpeg

Covid Update Jan 2024 – Peru is now open to international travelers. Travelers must show proof of vaccination. Those who are unvaccinated have to show a negative covid-19 test issued up to 48 hours before boarding. Find the complete information on the official website of the Peru government.

Hand in Hand With a Peruvian Grandmother in Cusco

A gray-haired lady entered the restaurant and turned her eyes to me instantly. Her gaze didn’t surprise me. During the eight months I had been traveling in South America, I visited indigenous Andean villages and remote islands where the locals had never met someone from India before. My earthy complexion and kohled eyes always raised a plethora of questions about my origin.

Hello Friends,

How have you been?

Dictionary.com tells me that a virus means an infective agent that typically consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat, is too small to be seen by light microscopy, and is able to multiply only within the living cells of a host.

A small molecule that cannot be even seen by the naked eye, that needs us, humans, to live and multiply, has pushed us inside our homes and have locked us from the outside.

Here are some of my observations from the months spent locked inside the house during the pandemic. I wrote these updates as a personal diary for me to look back into the events later. But then I decided to publish the journal entries for everyone. Of course, not before sprinkling a little bit of humor to the otherwise serious matter. I hope you laugh a bit. And if I upset you unintentionally, please forgive me for I am just a die-hard comic.

person-throwing-fish-net-while-standing-on-boat feature image for I don't want to work.jpg

What to Do When You Don’t Want to Work?

What do I do when I don’t want to work?

I have put my computer aside more than once to cry over an unjust email or to get my fair share in a fight with my partner or another close friend.

I have had bad days. I have sometimes taken off on those hard days. Instead of writing, I went out on a drive and bought tiger prawns or cried and slept or read Charles Darwin while drowning myself in chamomile tea.

These bouts of sulking in my misery or fighting followed by pampering and sometimes spending time with the other fighter of the duel leading to the exhilaration and then to that moment of clarity where I justified the time spent crying as just another day lived and felt that life was as clear as a night sky have sometimes lasted for an hour and up to a day or even more.

One young summer of my life, I was living in Himachal, the home of the Himalayas. While learning the flute, practicing yoga, working on my blog, and trying to stick to Vipassana meditation techniques, I didn’t realize that I had buried myself under a lot of pressure to be the perfect Bohemian. Ironically, I was on a laid-back mountain staycation.

One Friday, my abuse of self-expectations pushed me to the abysmal depths of moroseness. I didn’t even want to lift my feet to walk to the bathroom. I spent two to three days lying in bed and weeping and sleeping and avoiding everyone and then hiking to a mountain alone.

In the two days of nothingness, I ignored all work, didn’t practice the flute, and put the yoga and meditation aside for wiser people. And on the third day of the rendezvous, I hung out with my travel friends and chatted away in the sun while eating palak paneer with garlic naan.

driving solo is the best way to travel in pandemic

Coronavirus and Travel

Table of Content

Traveling in a Pandemic

[Update – March 5, 2021 – Even if international travel has opened up, I don’t recommend it at all. I have cancelled all my international trips this year. And as I don’t recommend trips out of our home country, I’m not updating the inter-country travel information below.

I’m only planning to travel in India, wherever it seems the safest, in my own car, staying at isolated accommodations, avoiding sightseeing.]

When I made that one-day trip to Delhi for some essential work at the beginning of March, I didn’t know that that would be the only travel for months to come. Else I would have stuffed myself with the Bengaluru airport’s crispy masala dosas that I so love.

Or if I had known that my two-day road trip to BR Hills in February was the only jungle vacation I would take in the many ensuing months, I would have extended it by a few days. Seeing those sloth bears sprint in front of our jeep and leopards hiding behind the thickets could never get tiring.

But I’m not clairvoyant, not yet.

writing about travel on the mountain in-the-mehli-forest-himachal himalayas

My Top Travel Writing Secrets I Probably Shouldn’t Share

I have been writing about travel for ~~two years now~~ four years now (update 2022). When I started this blog, I wrote about personal growth and life inspiration. But because I travel constantly and I relish writing about nature, people, and experiences, I began writing travel articles on On My Canvas. (I’m an itinerant writer now.)

When I first ventured into travel writing, I panicked every time I put down my solo excursion tales and travel guides. I didn’t know how to write about traveling. I didn’t have the right tools. I remember telling my partner it would be a long time before I write good, relatable travel stories readers will enjoy. (my ideas about good writing.)

But even as a beginner travel writer, I wrote subjective articles such as why I travel and how can we stop ourselves from turning into the worst dictators (inspired by Cambodia). I have always preferred penning down personal travel memoirs rather than writing about the five things to do.

Some of my travel writings turned out to be good and some bad. So while this piece on the love and hate relationship with India won accolades, I’m still ashamed of this Vietnam photo essay.

I continued writing about trips to Southeast Asia and South America. As I published frequently, I started getting a hang of travel writing.

A Travelogue of the U Bein Bridge, Myanmar

U Bein Bridge is in a township of Mandalay called Amarapura, which was once the royal capital of Myanmar.

Amarapura, literally the city of immortality in Pali(अमरपुर in Hindi), was the capital from 1783 until 1857, for almost 75 years. In 1857, when entire India was about to burst into its first revolt against the British East India Company, Burma’s King Mindon was building Mandalay as his new capital.

In the construction of the capital, the King wanted to use the old material from Amarapura as the second Anglo-Burmese war, (in which many Indian soldiers fought as one can see the graves of the sepoys in a Yangon cemetery), hadn’t left the royal treasure in blooming conditions. Elephants obeyed their king’s wish by hauling the building material over the 11-kilometer distance between Amarapura and Mandalay.

blurred pencils colorful in water used in an article on creative schedules

While some people can’t focus until they have meandered around for hours and finally give in to guilt, others sit and get amazing work done by just holding the pen right: having a daily creative routine could be complicated or could come simple and natural.

What does a creative schedule even mean? A schedule that inspires creativity and helps the creators (writers, painters, entrepreneurs, designers, artists, and other creative professionals) forge their imaginations most desirably.

Also, creativity is subjective. A coder is creative when she can write a 100-line code in 10. A marketeer is creative when he can sell toothpaste such as Pepsodent to the human race.

Anyone with original ideas (in or out of their work sphere) is creative.