What, Why and How

India is best seen through our own eyes rather than a book, photos or a vlog.

I completed 15 years at Adobe in 2025 which made me eligible for a 6-week sabbatical. My kids, an 8-year-old daughter Dhimahi and a 7-year-old son Devasya also had their summer vacations in Bangalore for the entire month of April and May. My wife Shreya has been on a career break since 2025.

This provided the ingredients to do something interesting, with the time off aligning for everyone. What was needed was a perfect recipe to create something memorable. I thought about visiting western Europe covering France, Germany and Netherlands and spent considerable amount of time planning an experiential trip starting on April fools day i.e 1st April 2026

I was turning 40 on 21st May 2026 and I realised I'd be fooling myself (again) if I visited Europe (again). What I really wanted to do is visit parts of India which I never prioritised visiting earlier due to always supposedly better ways to utilise any vacation. All the places occupying space in my mind needed to be seen and experienced, but I was not ready to commit to it. Call it a mid-life crisis if you will, but I wanted to do something different this time - people who know me will relate to it.

We canceled the trip to Europe on 27th of March, still undecided about what to do otherwise but sure that going to Europe was definitely what I did not want to do. Shreya was onboard.

Araku has been on my mind since 2008 when I heard about it in Happy Days (first Telugu movie I watched) during my happy undergrad days with my friends. Shreya has also wanted to visit Araku for a few years now. Araku is 150 km from Vizag and we never wanted to visit Vizag and Araku only for a vacation spending the air fare and a week worth of vacation for the place.

30th March we decided to take the car and head towards Araku valley which is a good 1000+ km away from Bangalore. We thought we will plan along the way and figure out what to do from there on. We set some ground rules -

1. No extended pre planning of the trip

2. Hotel booking has to be the same day

On 2nd April, Shreya and I left our home in Bangalore with our 2 kids at 6:30 AM. We came back on 8th of May at 8:30 PM after 7684 km of driving and viewing India through our own eyes.