The Delhi-based designer makes a case for unplanned holidays. Befriending roosters and studying in village schools are pluses
y travels have always been spontaneous. We [wife Svetlana, and kids Zoraveur, 10, and Beyla, 5] don’t need an excuse to pile into my Ford EcoSport and head out. I often go to the mountains with the children because it’s accessible, I love driving in the hills, and they get to experience life that is far removed from their daily normal.
There’s something about spontaneous travel that a planned vacation can never compete with. Things are more likely to go wrong, but those make the best memories. In the villages in Himachal and Uttarakhand, my children befriend the locals, and play with roosters, goats and cows. On one of our trips, we stopped at Dharamkot. Zoraveur, who was threeandahalf then, made friends with a local boy named Shivansh. And because we were there for a week, he started going to Shivansh’s village school. That’s the kind of agility and flexibility of mind that I love, and that I want to share with my children.
Interacting with people from all walks of life, exposure to different languages, communication skills — it’s much more than you would find in school. It is important to break our children’s busschoolbushome routine.
MOutside the classroom
I got my love of spontaneity from my dad. I grew up in a small town called Banga in Punjab, and when my sister y last stop before I fly back home from a holiday is always the fresh produce market. And when it is the incredible Iewduh in Shillong, Meghalaya — one of the largest and busiest markets in the Northeast — one must bring cloth shopping bags and an open mind. The sheer variety of wild foraged produce is mindboggling. Then there are the seasonal sources of protein: silkworms, snails, grasshoppers, and the like.
Spring in Shillong is all sorts of beautiful and the market is thronging with people and produce. The local Khasis and people from the Jaintia and Garo hills have set up shops in the narrow alleys. I love the hustle: hawkers with carts piled high with local greens and herbs, woven cane baskets packed to the brim with rice, overturned crates serving as low tables, sacks spilling over with fresh turmeric, and brightly lit shops full of vegetables, fruits, spices and meats. There is a constant buzz of conversation and banter, all in a language that I don’t understand, which feels strangely liberating.
It’s too crowded to be that person checking Google Lens to
MI don’t use any fancy apps while travelling, just Google. We also keep physical maps on hand for when there’s no network.
and I were kids, I remember packing up to go visit relatives overnight or living with my aunt for a few months at a stretch. That flexibility was possible because my dad was a businessman — as such, your work is either ‘on or off’ 24/7, 365 days, depending on how you want to look at it. It’s similar to being a fashion designer. I think it’s a side effect of this that, when I’m on holiday, I’m 24/7 into it too. [Laughs.]
I remember two weeks after I met Svetlana, we went on a trip to Goa. This freespirited approach hasn’t changed since. Two years ago, we did a road trip from Delhi to Mizoram without the kids and without making any prior bookings. We just put Aizawl on Google Maps and set out. Depending on our pepper to try. She watched in glee, and cackled at my expression when my mouth started to tingle and go numb. Welcome to the magic of Sichuan peppers, locally known as jaiur. And my main spice purchase.
It’s fast going among these stalls. I know what I want: some dried turmeric powder, perilla seeds to try and make one of their chutneys, perhaps the muli khleh (radish with perilla), black sesame, to attempt their iconic pork curry at home, and some local yellow chilli seeds and powder. I try to stop there, but then I buy three cookbooks.
Stop 3: meat and fish
You must be thinking, ‘Is she nuts?’ But no, the smoked meats in the Northeast are fascinating. Their flavour, texture and aroma are location every day around 3 p.m.4 p.m., we would start looking for places to stay — anything from an Airbnb, to a local hotel, PWD guest house, and if nothing else was available, then our car. We were on the road for 32 days.
That sense of adventure, problem solving skills, flexibility of mind and body, are all things that I want to gift my children. These are difficult to attain when you are immersed in the daily work grind. So, it’s important to head to places with no network, where the children are forced to interact with nature — something we took for granted growing up.
Last year, we went to Ladakh and Pangi Valley with Zoraveur and Beyla. I remember my dad asking me to wait for the school holidays, but I insisted on taking them. Since the kids are young now, it’s okay to miss school sometimes. I believe these experiences will help them develop a unique outlook on life. incomparable, and I love that they travel well. Into the bag go smoked pork and fish, and the dreams of many meals that can be rustled up with them.
And finally
Somehow along the way, indigenous red and purple sticky rice grown in the Khasi Hills, a bag of beautiful white tea from the same hills, a bottle of the local brew chubitchi, a fermented rice liquor made in the Garo Hills, and some pottery handcrafted in the Jaintia Hills ‘accidentally’ fall into my bags. I went to Shillong with 12 kilos of
Suket Dhir is a fashion designer and an International Woolmark Prize winner.
◣ (Clockwise from far left) Wild edible flowers; snails; bundles of fish mint and Indian pennywort; red potatoes and purple chillies; smoked fish; fish mint roots and fresh turmeric; soy beans; and commonly called the stink bean. luggage. I came back with 31. And almost everything is food or foodrelated.
I have always maintained that food is our greatest common factor. It opens doors, encourages conversations (even if it’s in sign language), builds friendships and offers a deeply personal insight into a community, its people and their culture. As I stand in my kitchen in Chennai, looking at everything I have brought back, I cannot be more excited to hold on to this feeling and these wonderful flavours.
The writer is co-owner of
The Farm in Chennai. She was in Meghalaya on Meghalaya Toursim’s invitation.