Why India?

The two most asked questions I get are… Why India? How did you get into this job? Well, after recounting snippets here and there over the years, I thought it’s about time I properly answered the question. Here is a little introduction to my story.

I grew up in a loving, hard-working household with my mum, dad, and younger brother. My parents were grafters, and they taught us early on the meaning of a hard day’s work to earn your own money. My first job was in a garden centre at 15, earning £3 an hour. Later came stints cleaning hotel rooms, working on a Saturday market stall, and scanning food at the supermarket checkout.

We were never the wealthy family in my friendship groups, but my parents made sure my brother and I never went without. Long-haul travel wasn’t on our radar - holidays meant package trips to Spain, holiday parks and the like, which I adored. They gave me my first taste of being somewhere completely different, away from the comfort of home.

I became the first in my family to go to university, choosing to study criminology and criminal justice. I’ve always had a curious mind - drawn to real stories, non-fiction, and learning about other people’s lived experiences. My mum said I inherited the spirit of my late grandfather, a Labour councillor I never met. She said it was him in me that spoke up for those less fortunate, that couldn’t keep quiet when something felt unjust. She and my dad were convinced I’d grow up an activist and tie myself to a tree for one cause or another.

During my second year at university, I received a non-repayable grant due to my family’s low household income. By today’s standards, it wasn’t a fortune, but I’d never seen that much money land in my account. I decided perhaps now was my chance, to travel, like so many students had told me about from their gap years. Surely spending some of this new found money was better than in the student bars on 2-4-1 vodkas.

It was 2009. Slumdog Millionaire had just been in cinemas, and I remember thinking, “What about India?” I didn’t know anyone who’d been. On the big screen, it looked like the polar opposite of the life I knew. Why not? I bought a Lonely Planet guide to India, found a voluntary project in a city called Jaipur, and booked myself on a flight to Delhi for August. (I was 20 and had no idea I’d be arriving during monsoon)!

That trip cracked my world wide open.

The first night in India, I cried down the phone to my parents from a basement bedroom with no windows, a shared toilet, and a huge phone bill racking up - get me home! Thankfully my dad, always with his wise words, encouraged me to sleep on it and see how I felt the next day. I am grateful he did.. after that, India got under my skin in a way I couldn’t shake. Every morning, I’d be up at 5am, riding on the back of a motorbike to my voluntary placement, straight through the heart of Jaipur. I can still see it so vividly now - fires being lit on the roadside for warmth, milk sellers clinking their cans, auto drivers stirring from sleep on the back seats of their rickshaws.

Internet on mobile phones was still in its infancy, so I’d walk to an internet café or queue for a pay phone to call home. My mum loved hearing the chaos in the background - she’d make me hold the phone up so she could hear the horns, the chatter, the clatter of life in motion. These were scenes so far removed from anything my parents or I had ever experienced - and they were the beginning of everything.

When the trip ended, I cried (again) almost the whole way home on the eight-hour flight, airplane earphones on, moody music on repeat, staring out of the window and wondering how I could possibly get back to the country and its people that had captured my heart.

I graduated with my criminology degree, but all my spare time was spent working in a supermarket, saving every possible penny for another Delhi-bound ticket. In 2010 and 2011, I made it happen, returning twice with my backpack, this time bringing friends and my brother along for the ride. We travelled together through the chaos and beauty of India - Mumbai’s never-ending movement, Varanasi’s otherworldly riverfront, moments that have stayed with me ever since.

After that third trip, I found myself home, working in a local pet shop and living back with my parents trying to figure out what to do with my future. I’d spend hours pouring over travel magazines, daydreaming about where to go next - but my mind always circled back to India.

One day, flipping through the back pages of one of those magazines in the job adverts section (yes, that was a thing back then), I spotted something: India Specialist wanted, for a tailormade travel company. I remember thinking - wow, does a job like that really exist?

And with a few printed photos of me in India clipped to my CV, well… the rest, as they say, is history.