“Perhaps what I really need is to be close to the river.”
Depi Chaudhry (56) hadn’t an inkling that this whim within the early 2000s would sometime rework into his dream, ‘Aashraya on the Ganga’. The homestay is alienated from the cacophony of Rishikesh, and the AQI (Air High quality Index) right here is an outlier, standing at 16 as of 24 October 2024, in stark distinction to North India’s statistics, which border on 200.
For Depi, a multi-hyphenate —- “I’m an avid trekker, an engineer, a homestay proprietor and a father to 3 women” — the homestay was a corollary of the sustainable life he envisioned for his daughters as they acquired older. “I believed this [the cottages] would encourage them to spend extra time outdoor.”
Letting us in on why he was eager to reside close to the River Ganges, he remembers certainly one of his many trekking expeditions. After the household’s transfer from Bengaluru to Gurugram in 2002, Depi was busy discovering his rhythm as a stay-at-home dad. His day, which started with neatly arranging three tiffin containers — guessing which snacks would thrill his little women — typically ended with him getting ready lavish dinners following homework periods within the evenings. Naturally, when his daughters moved to boarding faculty in later years, the empty nest introduced an ache for firm, which Depi present in nature.
“I started trekking across the Himalayas. Earlier than this transfer, we have been at all times in Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad. I needed to reap the benefits of being in North India,” he explains.
Nevertheless, that winter additionally introduced a realisation: trekking by way of the snow wasn’t as simple as he’d presumed. He wanted one other escape, and as he ultimately found, river rafting proved to be a superb various. The land on which ‘Aashraya on the Ganga’ stands beforehand hosted Depi’s rafting enterprise, ‘Actual Adventures,’ in 2003.
Aashraya on the Ganga: A feast for nature lovers
The homestay has three cottages — Alaknanda, Bhagirathi, and Ganga — a father’s love letter to his daughters, Aishwarya (29) and twins Aditi and Anisha (28). Every cottage features a double mattress and two single beds, whereas the ‘Frangipani Cottage’ affords a double mattress and a personal backyard. With sustainability in each crevice, each on the homestay and its environment, the cottages make for a nice escape for these in search of an eco-stay.
The hosts, Depi and his daughter Aditi reiterate their dedication to creating nature a crux of all the pieces they do at Aashraya. Proof of this lies within the inexperienced palette, the thousand-plus timber bordering the homestay, which make you are feeling as if you’ve simply stepped into nature’s cleaning soap opera.
Acknowledging that she and her sisters have been method too younger to understand their father’s concepts on the time, Aditi, an architect, now recognises how he was forward of the curve when it got here to sustainable practices. Depi loves treating his visitors to those tales. A nomad, as he describes himself in response to my query about the place he hails from, Depi has lived many lives throughout the Indian map. His adventures — and maybe the chai he brews — preserve his visitors hanging on to his each phrase throughout these storytelling periods.
Honest warning: no two cuppas are alike. The flavours are enriched by souvenirs introduced again from his travels throughout India —- rhododendrons from Chopta in Uttarakhand, sea buckthorn leaves from Ladakh, and wild hibiscus from across the property. The whole lot has a narrative at Aashraya, from the tea and the meals (an epicurean expertise) to the structure, which celebrates native supplies — dry stone and wooden sourced from a Maruti showroom.
A coolness engulfs each visitor who units foot on the property, stemming from the roof padded with recycled jute baggage. Evidently, electrical energy use is minimal. The daddy-daughter duo proudly share that they capitalise on daylight, fulfilling their electrical energy wants by way of photo voltaic.
Luxurious needn’t come at the price of sustainability
Elaborating on the idyllic journey the cottages have seen — one which has advanced in parallel with the women’ lives — Depi shares, “Initially, the plan was for this to be a household vacation house. We thought it might be pretty for the women to come back right here with their associates throughout their boarding faculty breaks. For a few years, it remained a private house for us. However over time, I started to really feel the pinch of it changing into a ‘white elephant’. I needed it to have a life. That’s once I determined to start out a homestay,” he displays.
Guaranteeing sustainability factored into each choice went with out saying.
At Aashraya, nothing is taken into account waste. The kitchen water passes by way of a easy contraption that, whereas obstructing the meals particles, permits clear water to circulation right into a collection of ponds for additional clarification. This water is then used for gardening. Equally, meals waste is remodeled into compost by a shredder. Historically, this course of takes 28 days, however Depi is all smiles as he shares that Aashraya’s methodology shortens the time: “It takes simply 5 days for manure to be prepared.”
A keep at Aashraya is akin to reserving a getaway into one other realm the place the standard metrics of time don’t apply. Routines listed here are guided by the rhythm of nature. However when you could also be tempted to romanticise the homestay’s remoted location — 45 km away from Rishikesh — Depi cautions that the path to the homestay is tough.
“Getting right here requires an exquisite 2.2 km, one-hour average trek that takes you throughout a river bridge after which by way of a forest and a village. A very good health stage is required to stroll this stretch comfortably. Our workers will obtain you at the start line of the trek and provide help to out together with your baggage. Mules may be employed on prior request at Rs 300 per mule (to be paid by visitors),” he shares.
However he shortly provides that the fantastic views compensate for this effort. Being so lower off from the town, Aashraya has tailored to satisfy its personal wants. Creating this universe of self-sufficiency wasn’t simple, as Depi explains.
“It has been a sluggish and tedious course of that has taken a few years to construct. For the primary fifteen days of my keep right here, I ate the identical meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was no electrical energy, and I used to be residing in a tent,” his voice trails off as he displays on these days. Many occasions, Depi felt alone within the journey to constructing this haven in Rishikesh. However even in these moments of solitude, nature stored him firm, providing him assist when he wanted it.
“You realize, quickly after the three cottages have been prepared, a woodpecker started visiting us, pecking on the panes with spectacular depth. We’d shoo it away, however it might return, shifting from one cottage to the following.” After a number of days of unsuccessfully making an attempt to eliminate the fowl — Depi laughs that they even stored a carpenter at hand to restore the damages brought about — he realised the woodpecker was making an attempt to convey a message. There have been termites within the wooden! After treating the wooden with treatment, in the future, the woodpecker stopped visiting Aashraya. Its job was executed.
Depi appreciates how, again and again, nature has intervened, making certain he stays heading in the right direction. That is evident in his journey of regreening the once-overgrown land, which now boasts oranges, brinjals, guava, pumpkins, mangoes, dragon fruit, custard apples, and cherries.
Aditi and her sisters, although at present residing in numerous elements of the world, emphasise that Aashraya has at all times felt like house. “We’ve grown up right here. For us, it’s a place that reminds us of our mother and father and our childhood. It’s a place that makes us wish to be nearer to nature,” Aditi shares. I can nearly really feel her father’s sigh of reduction; the cycle of his intention is full. Proud that his daughters really feel this fashion, Depi says. “On the finish of the day, nature has all of the solutions for us. It has the options we want.”
E-book your escape right here.
Edited by Arunava Banerjee
