Pune: Young professionals are now looking to escape the pressures of corporate life and find fulfilment in ventures that align with personal interests and values. While some are embracing the mountain life, others are setting up boutique properties in the wilderness. A few years ago, Amit Srivastava and his wife Shipra Mohan Sinha, now in their 40s, quit their ‘nine to five’ finance and publishing jobs to move to the hills.
The idea was to give preference to ‘life’ over ‘lifestyle’. “We decided to move to Lansdowne to enjoy a slow, peaceful life. Both of us are naturalists now and also run a café.
We are also giving space to the local communities to display their handicrafts and other hand-crafted items at the café,” said Amit, who runs Lansdowne Trip Travel Café. Indrani Chakraborty and Soumya Mukherji, another couple who took this risk at the prime of their careers, said that they don’t have a single day of regret. “Both of us used to travel extensively for work and we couldn’t tolerate the corporate pressure anymore.
We decided to quit our jobs and go back to our roots in Bhubaneswar, and we now run this homestay close to the Chandaka Elephant Sanctuary,” 38-year-old Indrani said. The couple runs Svanir Wilderness Ecostay in Odisha, which offers visitors a unique detox homestay experience close to nature. Young couples said that most of these passion projects have now become a blend of business acumen and creative expression.
“The idea is to cash in on experiential travel and offer people niche travel and leisure experiences. We are in the process of building a boutique property on an organic farm in Uttarakhand,” said 32-year-old Ronit Sharma, who recently quit his job in Mumbai to pursue his passion project. Similar is the story of former media professional Shreya Arora and her husband Shantanu Sharma, who have now relocated to Shangarh, a remote village in Himachal, to live the mountain life.
The couple now runs a luxury boutique property, Hiraeth, which caters to those who are seeking a break from the hectic city life. “All we ever really wanted from our life was to live longer, healthier, and wake up happier each day. Running a luxury boutique chalet in Himachal Pradesh isn’t the most profitable business yet, and so we keep trying our hand at different things, but Shangarh is always at the centre of it all,” said Shreya.
The couple is also working with the local communities to provide them with employment in their venture and have also started selling fresh apples to different parts of the country. Couples are also happy to quit their full-time jobs to give back to the community. Two years ago, Sanjana Sheth, who worked at an education non-profit in Mumbai, quit her job and moved to Vietnam with her husband Rishabh Mehta to live a more fulfilling life.
“I now work at an after-school language centre for 4-5 hours in the evening, where I teach students English. Most of my mornings and afternoons are free, and we’ve been able to travel to nearly every corner of Vietnam,” she said..
