Author: Anurag Yadav

The PM’s suggestion has stirred a nest and many think it’s a hornet’s. In a message to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent appeal asking Indians to think twice before rushing abroad for holidays and destination weddings, has nudged the travel industry into an interesting debate. Predictably, sections of the outbound travel trade reacted nervously. But the issue deserves a calmer and more practical reading. India today faces a curious tourism imbalance. Indians are travelling abroad in record numbers, while inbound foreign tourist arrivals are still struggling to fully regain pre-pandemic momentum. Foreign travel, once a once-in- odd chance…

A city seen through borrowed eyes made my heart pine for it still more. Some cities reveal themselves only if you borrow the right pair of eyes. Mysore did that for me—courtesy of my family friends the Bhatts, a Gujarati husband and a Bengali wife who grew up in Puducherry, built their early careers in Delhi, and then—in that mysterious way wise people make big decisions—decided to uproot themselves and plant their lives in Mysore. Almost three decades back. In the prime of demanding professional journeys, they sought a gentler rhythm. Their two daughters, now grown and thoroughly Mysorean, are…

There is a more important T word we should be concerned about. It’s time to rework the global narrative for Indian tea. Indian tea is everywhere yet sadly, perhaps still nowhere. It fills supermarket shelves in London, Tokyo, New York—but often sits cloaked behind generic labels. In cafés from Paris to Singapore, Indian teas are usually confined to a token listing—masala chai tucked quietly beneath labels of “Earl Grey” and “English Breakfast.” The real daddy of teas—robust Assams, nuanced Darjeelings, aromatic Nilgiris—somehow end up as supporting cast in their own movie. Back home, however, the tide is turning. A small…

Fiongal and Jamie, and the quiet bridges they built for India. When Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek and Jamie Ray Meek arrived in India earlier last month, it was with open hearts and a gentle purpose. As spiritual wellness practitioners and founders of The Wellness Foundry, the couple from London had long spoken about travel as more than moving to different destinations. It was, to them, an act of communion. With place, with people, and often, with something bigger. India, with its layers of mysticism and modernity, gave them what they had come for. In the days leading up to June 12, they…

Concern about the cash till is essential but there are times when it turns cold turkey. It happened again. The idyllic serenity of Pahalgam—long a haven for nature lovers and pilgrims alike—was shattered by an act of terror. The recent attack on tourists in this Kashmiri retreat has served as a brutal reminder that violence does not respect seasons, itineraries, or the fragile dreams of travellers. Two years back, just weeks before the horrifying October 7 attack, I found myself standing at an immigration counter in Israel. It was a month before the events of that fateful day that turned…

Why shouldn’t New Zealand be on the top list for the Indian outbound? The best way to experience any destination is to get out of the overtly too-well-planned itinerary mould which supposedly gift wraps a destination. In the case of New Zealand, it is such a charming place that very few staid coach tours under a timekeepers watch can ever hope to deliver perfectly. Just last month, a two week self-drive trip through New Zealand drove the idea with still more conviction that the country needs to be lived in and not traipsed through to get what it’s all about.…

If tourism is one of the visible spin-offs, let proven experts handle the town’s civic maintenance. Some local municipalities do work hard on sanitation but the usual narrative is that the littering habit is inherent in the common people. However, there is no reason to be smug and not step up to hold our own bull by its horns. It is time to pick and select one example and work on it. It’s easy to blame the teeming public for littering. Despite almost a decade of Swachh Bharat initiatives, what meets the eye leaves much to be desired. Special occasions…

What exactly can handle the impressions of strict security contrasted with great-experience needs? After sailing seamlessly through immigration counters at airports in 60 plus countries in the the last decade and a half, to be asked to step aside for further questioning at the Ben Guiron airport in Tel Aviv came as an irritant, howsoever minor. Especially since they allowed me to go without asking a single question. The world today is cautious, suspicious and should definitely be on guard. However, from the tourism standpoint, how smooth, unobtrusive and efficient this process can be may define tourism friendliness to starry…

Hopefully this could soon be a statement and not a question as far as public responsibility towards cleanliness is concerned. With the G20 mood pervading the country, especially the urban centres, there is a flurry of activity to put forward the country’s best foot (and face). The thing is, like most things, a well turned out city is as much the result of government attention as it is about responsibility at the citizen level. In India, till a decade back, a behavioural change direction was never the pivot in the sanitation policy. Thankfully the Swachh Bharat hype, which drew snarky…

Every time a new tech surprises us, sceptics have a field day. I remember the day my dad came home excited- gushing over a new ‘electronic typewriter’ acquired by his office. He was excited that it automatically jumped to the second line without him having to manually crank the typewriter lever. Ten to one I suspect very few readers will even know about a lever that had to be cranked to move to the next line while typing. As it is, most would prefer to say ‘writing’ instead of ‘typing ‘since no one writes anyway. In the nineties, there were…