The interview and reporting for this story were conducted in November 2024.

“Maybe what I really want is to be near the river.”

Depi Chaudhry (56) hadn’t an inkling that this whim in the early 2000s would someday transform into his dream, ‘Aashraya on the Ganga’. The homestay is alienated from the cacophony of Rishikesh, and the AQI (Air Quality Index) here is an outlier, standing at 16 as of 24 October 2024, in stark contrast to North India’s statistics, which border on 200.

For Depi, a multi-hyphenate —- “I’m an avid trekker, an engineer, a homestay owner and a father to three girls” — the homestay was a corollary of the sustainable life he envisioned for his daughters as they got older. “I thought this [the cottages] would encourage them to spend more time outdoors.”

Letting us in on why he was keen to live near the River Ganges, he recalls one of his many trekking expeditions. After the family’s move from Bengaluru to Gurugram in 2002, Depi was busy finding his rhythm as a stay-at-home dad. His day, which began with neatly arranging three tiffin boxes — guessing which snacks would thrill his little girls — often ended with him preparing lavish dinners following homework sessions in the evenings. Naturally, when his daughters moved to boarding school in later years, the empty nest brought an ache for company, which Depi found in nature.

“I began trekking around the Himalayas. Before this move, we were always in Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad. I wanted to take advantage of being in North India,” he explains.

However, that winter also brought a realisation: trekking through the snow wasn’t as easy as he’d presumed. He needed another escape, and as he eventually discovered, river rafting proved to be an excellent alternative. The land on which ‘Aashraya on the Ganga’ stands previously hosted Depi’s rafting business, ‘Real Adventures,’ in 2003.

Aashraya on the Ganga: A feast for nature lovers

The homestay has three cottages — Alaknanda,........

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