From inaugurations of events like the IPL to star-crossed lovers in our films staring dreamily into the distance as the sky lights up with fireworks, we’re hostage to the belief that no celebrations are complete until a few rockets have been fired into the night sky.

Discovering travel in my early 20s was truly a great thing. It allowed me to see beyond the confines of culture, tradition, food, and gender, but after a decade of globetrotting, the places, the people, and the people of the places, all start to feel like carefully curated prototypes of each other.