This article has been sponsored by Wingify Earth.

The COVID pandemic that struck the country in March 2020 shook many worlds. But for Dushyant Vashisht, a 26-year-old engineer from Delhi, it opened new doors. He went from being a boy who wanted to pursue his master’s abroad and travel the world to being the founder and manager of ‘Bir Terraces’. His story is nothing short of an exciting escapade, complete with bold choices and innovative thinking.

Bir Terraces is a luxurious homestay tucked away in a seven-acre estate in Kumaon, right in the lap of the Himalayas. As guests compliment his abode, Dushyant says that he feels a sense of pride, for the place he called ‘home’ is now a fascinating getaway for so many city folks.

But, he adds that this was never the plan, but rather a play of destiny.

‘The pandemic made me realise the potential of my home in the hills.’

Following his graduation from Manipal University, Mangaluru in 2018, Dushyant had a lucrative job in a multinational company, and the rest of his future seemed as exciting.

Taking us back to that time, he says, “I was prepared with all the prerequisite documents, tests, etc required to do a master’s degree abroad in 2020. But then an unprecedented pandemic halted everything, and I felt stuck. On one side, I had put down my papers at my job and was serving my notice period, and on the other side, going abroad seemed impossible now with border restrictions.”

But what he perceived to be a dead end turned out to be a life-changing period. It all started, he says, with a trip to Uttarakhand, where the family was to spend two months in their ancestral home, which belonged to Dushyant’s great-grandfather.

“Every resident of the city has a piece of land allotted to them, and in 2015, we had a cottage built on our........

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