The journey started in 2005. My first bed-tea being served, a Durga-Puja in Delhi, the mindblowing buzz of Calcutta and the peaceful starry nights on the bench next to the mud huts in the world’s largest mangrove forest. That was the first week. What a land of contrasts.

One year before, I vouched never to visit the subcontinent, after meeting many travelers in Thailand who cured their belly pain they had brought from India as a souvenir. “I just visited from the best tourism project in the world”, told me Renate Loose, world-famous guidebook editor few months later at ITB Berlin. And she linked me to Help Tourism. That tour operator, that should teach me all I know about community tourism and who’s (informal) claim is: “Conservation without the local people is just Conversation”. They showed me around all the small tourism projects they had set up in the East Himalaya, the area stretching from the Bay of Bengal to the thirdhightest peak on the planet and then turning east between Bhutan and Bangladesh along the Brahmaputra river to the hils that border India with China and Myanmar. I became part of the movement using tourism as a tool for heritage protection, education, livelihood options and protection of nature and biodiversity – that essence of the acronym H.E.L.P. Tourism.

I was given the role of a pioneer guest, a trainer, a consultant in marketing and communication, a learner, a practicioner or Athithi Devo Bhava and a disciple of the religion of tour-ism warshipping biodivinity. And they put me, the student from abroad, on stage, made me give presentations to politicians and participate in stakeholder and community meetings.

The research for my master thesis on poverty reduction through tourism took me to Kerala’s Wayanad district, before the East called me home to Bengal for more learning, sharing and caring. My love for that ancient kingdom made me join Bengallink, the association for Bengali-German friendship, and social media connects me to daily impressions from there.

Since, I met wonderful people who welcomed me in other regions of the subcontinent, during organized press trips and on private visits. As I write this, few experiences pop up, apparently they stood out: driving a car around in downtown Mumbai, being carried uphill by fellow humans to the Ashanta Caves, discussing gender equality with Buddhist nuns in a Ladakh monastery, eliminating the burden of rebirth by dipping into Shipra river during Kumbh Mela in Ujjain, a walking safari in Tadoba Tiger Reserve and following the forest fires in Bintan, to name a few.

The journey continues.