Lavasa’s story is not just a story of an environmental disaster or an economic nightmare, it is a cautionary tale of the failure of human hubris and a reminder that it may be easy to build a perfect city, but it is damn near impossible to buy its heart.

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.

I’m only 20 and as wanderlust-y as they come. But if there’s something I know, it’s that the third day of every vacation is the best. It forces you to rethink your priorities and do what you’d intended to do in the first place: See a city from a fresh perspective.

A new study holds tourism responsible for nearly a tenth of the world’s carbon emissions. It’s made me question my own rapacious record with mindless travel, brainwashed by propaganda that only a well-travelled life was worthwhile.

Bullet riders and road trips are like Indian politicians and black money – all talk and no action. After using it to ride to and fro from their office all week, their grand weekend voyages amount to a grocery shopping trip to the marketplace.

I went on a trip alone and realised that 10 minutes of “me time” was all that I needed.

Much before I was spoilt for choice by in-flight entertainment options, I’ve enjoyed a dubbed version of The Transporter with a Hindi-speaking Jason Statham just as much as a double-header of Hungama and Hulchul on bus rides. As a broke college student with adventurous dreams but limited means, the movies played in the bus quickly became my favourite part of travel.

While trekking in Ladakh, I find myself buried waist-deep in debris. This is it, I tell myself. This is how I’ll go out, amid the oversold beauty of this high-altitude desert, as a slight disappointment to my mother and no book contract. I leave behind a flimsy legacy of FabIndia kurtas and Nicobar dresses.

My boyfriend and I love having sex in the wild. We now plan to make an eco-porn video – to raise donations and help the environment.

Travelling isn’t a leisure activity anymore. In 2019, it is a competitive sport. And social media is where the games are played. But this pressure to be constantly travelling, irrespective of deadlines and limited leaves, is sucking the joy out of wanderlust. Maybe some weekends are meant to just Neftlix and Chill.

While tracking tigers from a Gypsy is undoubtedly a pulsating affair, being confined to a vehicle ensures an inauthentic jungle experience. Jim Corbett once said that the fear of death added zest to the life of all jungle inhabitants, and the best way to imbibe that zest is to experience the forest on foot.

For my generation, travelling has become the catalyst that we believe will magically propel us toward enlightenment. It’s essentially our version of the tree Siddhartha sat under to become Gautam Buddha.

I moved to Goa restlessly in search of a new turf. I’d always dreamt of a life full of travel. But after eight years, Bangalore is the home I have chosen to return to.

I was upgraded to the business class on my flight to Colombo from Chennai and I began to feel like a different person.

On a road trip to Rajasthan, when I heard Bullet Baba’s story, I sniggered. I probably shouldn’t have.