Traversing the length and breadth of India, one thought keeps knocking at your mind: one life is simply not enough—not enough to explore, to experience, to truly absorb the endless magic of this land. Whether God-made or man-made, India overwhelms you with its landscapes, cultures, cuisines, rituals, customs, and stories—each more captivating than the last.

Carvings on ancient stones and paintings on timeworn walls boldly compete with art on canvas. And no, I won’t name such places—because then the next two pages would contain nothing but names. Temples, forts, palaces, stadiums, and sophisticated irrigation systems—many over 1,500 years old—dot almost every square kilometre of the country. Yes, 1,500 years old, dating back to a time when many of today’s developed nations were still in their infancy. Thousands of years ago, the Great Sage Valmiki composed Ramayan, an epic that chronicles the legendary odyssey of Lord Ram from the kingdom of Ayodhya to Sri Lanka and back. Even today, the landscape of the Indian subcontinent is dotted with the tangible evidences of the entire journey. In the deep north, at Badrinath Dham, the head priest has, for centuries, been a Nambudiri Brahmin from the deep south—an extraordinary symbol of India’s cultural unity. In Maharashtra, thousands of Warkaris walk for 21 days to Pandharpur every year, continuing an 800-year-old pilgrimage. Their discipline, devotion, and collective harmony must be seen to be believed. And what is mentioned above and in this book isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. Because the name of that iceberg is Tourism in India.

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AUTHOR: Meet Sanjay Bordia, a man who cracked the Chartered Accountancy exams back in 1987 and promptly decided that balancing books was fine, but balancing life across multiple cities was far more fun. He currently maintains permanent addresses in Mumbai, Udaipur, and “wherever the next flight lands.”

His top three hobbies used to be reading, writing, and travelling – until he pulled off the ultimate hobby merger and invented a fourth: writing about travelling. (Accountants love consolidation, after all.)