“Sometimes, the smallest spark in the darkest place can light up a world.” For 18-year-old Adarsh Kumar that spark came from a second-hand laptop his mother bought after months of saving. What began as a grit to rise over the gloomy state of poverty in childhood became an enlightening journey that has now inspired thousands. On the eve of Gandhi Jayanti in 2025, the world clapped for Adarsh Kumar for having won the Chegg.org Global Student Prize worth $100,000 from the United States.

This teenage startup founder and changemaker, who had once barely any money for a bus ticket, travelled internationally to receive the prize at an event held in London. The Global Student Prize 2025 winner Adarsh Kumar was selected out of nearly 11,000 nominations from 148 countries. Every year, Chegg Inc, a leading American educational organization, awards the Global Student Prize to “one exceptional student” who has made a real impact on society through education, innovation, and leadership.

Adarsh wants to invest the Global Student Prize money to multiply the socio-economic impact of his community welfare startup – Skillzo – through artificial intelligence and a fellowship. When he was 16 in 2023, he launched Skillzo that helps underprivileged yet meritorious students get scholarships and connects underserved rural youth with mentors for career guidance, as well as development opportunities. In just two years, Skillzo has supported 20,000 students and youths.

A part of the prize money would go into expanding Skillzo and supporting it with AI for better outcomes. He would utilize the prize money to introduce Ignite Fellowship for student innovators and run SkillzoX, a soon-to-be-launched upskilling program designed to empower the deserving youth with future-ready courses in communication, entrepreneurship, leadership, and of course, AI. Building on his experience of struggles to find mentors, he is eyeing improvements for more students and youths, irrespective of religion, community, and caste.

Raised by a single mother who worked as a domestic help to make ends meet; Adarsh Kumar joined the league of legends in Champaran, Bihar where Mahatma Gandhi started his Satyagraha Movement in 1917. Champaran, a historical place with stories of freedom movement, is also the birthplace of George Orwell, an English novelist of ‘Animal Farm’ fame; Manoj Bajpai, a National Film Award-winning actor; and Ramesh Chandra Jha, an eminent author and freedom fighter.

Education being the ultimate baton of ahimsa (non-violence) that Gandhiji preached in his lifetime encouraged Adarsh to dream big in a poverty-laden home where resources were scarce but aspirations were not. At 14, he left home in quest of better education opportunities beyond his village, with strong willpower and the old laptop that his mother had purchased for him. The laptop was his only outlet to access the outer world and explore free online courses until he left the village to make it big in life.

Eventually, he ended up in Kota, a city in Rajasthan, and the hub of prominent coaching institutes in India. Unable to afford paid classes, he studied in libraries, used free Wi-Fi, and continued to reach out to mentors for guidance. His hard work and persistence paid off when he earned a full scholarship worth INR 30 lakh to study at Jayshree Periwal International School in Jaipur.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Adarsh Kumar, then only 13, demonstrated leadership by launching a community initiative named Mission Badlao to improve education and healthcare in rural Bihar. The initiative helped secure land for a government school, organized over 2,000 COVID-19 vaccinations, distributed menstrual health products, and led plantation drives. His initiatives earned him recognition far and wide. He is one of the youngest Google Youth Advisors in India and has held leadership roles, including Chief Marketing Officer of Bihar Chhatra Sansad.

The Chegg Global Student Prize winner Adarsh Kumar’s story of grit and resilience, from the dusty streets of Champaran to the spotlight of international media, is a stark reminder – no beginning is too humble for a life to bloom and prosper. He does not define success in terms of wealth or fame but in the number of students empowered and communities uplifted. The award is not just another milestone in his journey, but a big opportunity to scale his mission and vision.

This article is brought to you by Travel Beats, a leading portal for Indian community stories and international travel news. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, the most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians and Americans for 18 years. Subscribe to the newsletter and follow us on Instagram for significant updates on USA to India travel.

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“I am proud of my daughter, Shivangi!” Those words, written in bold on a whiteboard at Microsoft’s global headquarters in the United States, became the highlight of a heartwarming video that recently went viral. Shivangi Reja, a software engineer, shared a short video of her parents visiting her coveted workplace at Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle Metro Area, where her ‘American Dream’ career is taking shape.

Contrary to the age-old belief in small Indian towns that daughters don’t bring fame to their parents unlike sons, Shivangi’s parents invested in her education and career rather than a big fat destination wedding. Shivangi not only flew her parents out to USA from India but also gave them a ceremonial welcome to her new home near Seattle. Since their arrival in June, the parents have been on a memorable multi-city tour across America, garnering new experiences.

The best part of their trip to the US is the moment that doubled their happiness during a tour of Shivangi’s workplace at Microsoft headquarters. Their beamed with pride and joy beyond measure that words could hardly explain. The Instagram reel shows Shivangi walking her parents through the expansive Microsoft campus that sprawls across 500 acres and houses more than 125 buildings. She guided them through her workspace, meeting rooms, and the buzzing cafeteria.

Their Microsoft tour culminated in a touching moment when her parents wrote a message on a meeting room whiteboard, “I am proud of my daughter Shivangi.” A few months ago, another Indian-origin techie hit headlines for booking his parents’ first ever international travel to USA and giving them a tour of his Nvidia office in California. For Indian parents, moments like these are never just simple office tours at trillion-dollar American MNCs. Rather, a walk down memory lane – the days of their hard work, their sacrifices, their joy over simple things, their investments (of energy, time, and effort).

In the video caption, Shivangi explained the deeper meaning behind the tour. She wrote, “From a small town in India to showing my parents the place I call my workplace @microsoft. This isn’t just my dream come true, it’s theirs too. Every sacrifice, every prayer, every hope they carried has led me here. Today, I didn’t just bring them to my office, I brought them to the dream we built together. And honestly, what more could a daughter ask for than seeing her parents say, ‘We’re proud of you.”

Shivangi Reja’s video has garnered around 5 million views and thousands of comments, with many stating that the scene brought tears to their eyes. One of her followers commented, “The ultimate dream of every Indian kid working abroad, and the ultimate joy of every Indian parent!” Another wrote, “Parents’ happiness is the true measure of our success. The smile on their faces says it all.”

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On his recent visit to the US as a guest speaker, Alakh Pandey – popularly known as Physics Wallah – motivated Indian students at Harvard University, Stanford University, and California University to reverse brain drain to India and be part of India’s growth story directly or indirectly. While delivering a keynote, he said, “Our country has many drawbacks; however, no country is perfect. Young Indians at home and abroad should work towards making it better.”

Ruchit Garg did 12 years ago what Physics Wallah told Indian students abroad to do now. Ruchit Garg, an ex-Microsoft program manager, quit his pursuit of American Dream, returned to the roots, and started working for the economic wellbeing of farmers in 2015. After a stint in the IT corridor of Hyderabad, he got an onsite opportunity to work at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters. After 3 years in 2011, he left the job with a fat paycheck of INR 1 Cr per annum only to dabble as an entrepreneur in America’s thriving startup space.

He started feeling like a misfit there as his chase of American Dream lacked a noble objective for his native country. His grandfather was a farmer in Uttar Pradesh; therefore, his umbilical cord with fields and farming pulled him back home to transform the lives of smallholder farmers who belong to an underserved community though they grow crops for 80% of the planet. His compassion for farmers allied with technology for the launch of a field-to-market startup, Harvesting Farmer Network (HFN).

Dubbed as “Amul of the next generation”, Ruchit Garg’s Harvesting Farmer Network strives to increase the sales turnover of various farm produces by helping farmers get better deals directly from buyers. Precisely, he has eliminated the role of intermediaries who would take a significant chunk of farmers’ sales proceeds, and thus, helped nearly 40 lakh smallholder farmers in India since the launch of his startup.

Harvesting Farmer Network’s Kisan app is an all-in-one guide for farmers like a lighthouse on the seashore for sailors. It disseminates updated information in various regional languages about government schemes for farmers, modern farming methods, the sourcing of high-quality seeds and various raw materials, and likes. The app is a growing network of farm producers and buyers, and a platform for listing crops for sale. Ruchit Garg and his HFN team also provide scientific, financial and legal advice to farmers and those involved in farming some way or the other.

Ruchit’s agri-tech startup had a humble beginning. What he started on WhatsApp a few years ago has grown into a one-stop solution for farmers. Recently, he brought commercial banks with the ambit of his startup to help farmers seek finance at reasonable interest rates. He opines that the financial service offering is an under-penetrated market in the agricultural sector. Given that technology is yet to reach some parts of rural India, he set up more than 17000 offline kisan centers across the country, where non-tech-savvy farmers can connect with buyers and seek information, help, and/or expertise.

Like USA-returned barefoot billionaire Sridhar Vembu, Ruchit Garg believes in the virtue of giving back to society. His empathy for farmers at the grassroots level stems out of the hardships he had in his growing years after his father’s untimely demise. He was raised by a single mother who was a clerk at the Indian Railways library in Lucknow. While she could not afford to buy books for him, her job at the government library gave him unrestricted access to books and magazines. Reading case studies in Harvard Business Review magazines, which he considered a “fun pastime” back then, sowed the seeds of entrepreneurship into him.

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Contrary to the popular belief that children from India leave their parents helpless in their pursuit of ambition and success abroad; an Indian techie not only flew his parents out to the US but also took them to his office where his ‘American Dream’ career is taking shape. It was a transcendent moment for the parents who could not hold back tears for being proud of their son and happy for his success. The US-based Indian techie’s sister shared the heartwarming story that resonated with Indian Diaspora on social media and went viral.

The Indian techie works at Nvidia’s headquarters in California. It is his parents’ first trip to the United States from India. Since they arrived in California a few weeks ago (in May), they have been on a multi-city tour across the US starting from Mount Madonna with a hilltop Hanuman temple in Santa Clara County. Naturally, their excitement and joy doubled during a visit to their son’s workplace, the Nvidia office in Santa Clara. “Big smiles on their faces,” their daughter who lives in Amsterdam said in a tweet.

The parents who taught their children to dream big and blessed them to make it big in life were overwhelmed to see the spaceship-like buildings spanning more than 1 million square feet – close to the total area of the Taj Mahal complex in India. At Nvidia’s headquarters, world-class meeting rooms, fully-equipped canteen, flamboyant entertainment areas, sprawling workspace, top-notch gym and other state-of-the-art facilities left them in awe of the promising career and the bright future that they had imagined for their son (and the daughter).

For them, it was not just a simple office tour at one of the trillion-dollar American MNCs. Rather, a walk down memory lane – the days of their hard work, their sacrifices, their joy over simple things, their investments (of energy, time, and effort). All these have resulted in good things for their children. This very thought gave them absolute peace of mind and a profound sense of fulfilment that most Indian professionals working abroad and their parents can relate to.

The daughter’s social media post on her parents’ visit to her brother’s Nvidia office in California has gone viral melting hearts and evoking positive emotions in the global Indian community. One Indian from London commented, “I did the same with my parents 2 years ago in London. Great refresher!” It resonated with Indian immigrants in the US, one of them wrote, “Great deed! My parents are visiting me next month. I will surely take them to my office.”

This is part of our continued series of inspiring stories of Indians in America, at Travel Beats, your favorite community portal for Diaspora news, US-India travel updates, airport guides, transit visa queries, etc. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, the most trusted travel-booking partner for Indians and Americans.

The post Indian Techie Takes Parents to His Nvidia Office in USA; It Leaves Them Teary-eyed out of Pride and Joy first appeared on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

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Let your bucket list feature the Sankurathri Foundation if you’re traveling to India, especially Andhra Pradesh this summer. A visit to the Sankurathri Foundation campus in the coastal town of Kakinada is no less divine an experience than a pilgrimage. At the entrance of the campus, your attention will be caught by the larger-than-life statue of three human beings underneath a sprawling tree. Their unpleasant demise in the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight gave birth to the extraordinary journey of Dr Chandrasekhar Sankurathri, who has been named a Padma Shri awardee this Republic Day 2023. 

Padma Shri Dr Sankurathri, 79, is a living embodiment of what Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” His life of success and happiness in Canada turned upside down after the crash of Air India flight 182, from Montreal to Mumbai, over the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland took away his wife and two children. However, unlike tragic heroes in literature and cinema, Dr Sankurathri transformed the darkness of grief and loneliness into a beacon of light for the underprivileged in rural India.

After three years of bereavement, he left Ottawa where he was a celebrated biologist for two decades, and returned to his roots in Andhra Pradesh on a quest for a new purpose of his life. He was also a scientific evaluator for the Ministry of Health, Canada. On seeing rural folks of his hometown and beyond mired in poverty due to the lack of education and healthcare, he rose over his personal grief to uplift them. He braved the tragedy to live for a bigger cause – breaking the cycle of illiteracy and physical ailments for the needy.        

In 1989, he established the Sankurathri Foundation in memory of his family ushering in a new era of empowerment for Kakinada. He also set up the Manjari Memorial Foundation (Manjari was his wife) as a registered charity in Ontario, Canada. Both the foundations have their goals aligned towards improving the quality of life for the poor. With all his savings, he started working on several projects through the Sankurathri Foundation, including free education to poor children at Sarada Vidyalaya that he consecrated to his daughter in 1992.

So far, the high school has educated over 5000 children from the economically weaker households, at a zero-dropout rate. The children are helped with study materials, meals, and health check-ups at the school. In its exclusive article on Dr Chandrasekhar Sankurathri, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) lauded Sarada Vidyalaya as “a ticket out of poverty for these kids”. The article also reads, “Ask them how many have parents who cannot read and write. Most of the hands go up. Ask them what they want to be when they grow up? They answer: Teacher, doctor, police officer….”

The Institute of Ophthalmology that the Sankurathri Foundation has been running since 1993 is named after his son, who was only 7 while traveling on the ill-fated flight. The mission of providing free quality eye care to the visually impaired living below the poverty line is inspired by his son’s dream of becoming an ophthalmologist. The Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmologist has restored vision to nearly 300,000 patients of vulnerable age-groups through cataract surgeries, 90% of which were conducted for free. The institute also holds free medical check-up camps in remote areas of the state.

“15 million Indians are living without vision,” according to Dr Sankurathri’s Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmology located on a serene five-acre site near Kakinada and equipped with modern equipment. There are 10 outpatient clinics, 4 operation theatres, a pharmacy, two optical shops, a cafeteria, and an auditorium. Interestingly, the institute is recognized as the best NGO in ophthalmology by the state government. The institute continues to get support from the University of Ottawa Eye Institute, Rotary International, Infosys Foundation, Eye Foundation of America, the Canadian International Development Agency, and Arvind Eye Hospitals Tamil Nadu. Moreover, the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce adjudged him as the “Humanitarian of the Year 2013”.

“The demise of his wife and children was the culmination of the family tragedy that had begun in his childhood. When Chandrasekhar Sankurathri was only 7, his mother died of an unidentified illness. His elder brother went missing after two years of his mother’s untimely death. The fate continued to be hostile against the family as the Godavari floods left many village households including theirs penniless the next year. He lost his only sister when he was 13.

However, he defied to be at the mercy of his fate and became a ray of hope for others. After the air incident in 1985, his stoicism became his strength. This reminds me of the concluding dialogue from “Riders to the Sea”, a popular Irish play, “No man at all can be living forever and we must be satisfied”, said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats.

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Saas and Bahus are mostly at loggerheads from Indian TV family soaps to Indian households. Either mothers-in-law are dominating and daughters-in-law are submissive, or daughters-in-law are scheming and mothers-in-law are suffering. In times when their “kitchen politics” grab eyeballs to raise TRPs for TV serials, a real-life saas-bahu duo – Sushila and Aishwarya – have bonded over food as friends and business partners though they are thousands of miles apart from each other.

Sushila cooks Marathi flavors in her kitchen in Mumbai and her daughter-in-law Aishwarya serves the same from New York. The saas creates culinary magic in India and ships to New York with dollops of nostalgia. The bahu packages it and sells to Indian expats across the United States where all Indian things are available these days, except authentic Maa ka Khana. Their bond is called and celebrated as Namkeen Queens.

Before Namkeen Queens was born, Sushila Aai would send her handmade sweets and snacks to her son and daughter-in-law in New York on festive occasions like Diwali. Engaged in the American rate race, their only comfort of home away from home was Sushila’s besan ladoo, rava ladoo, and chakli from India. Festive boxes of homemade savories on flights from Mumbai to New York blossomed into a full-blown business – Namkeen Queens in the US.

For Aishwarya Shankar, a Keralite of Tamil descent, the Marathi snacks with touches of Kolhapur cuisine tasted completely different; however, the love, warmth, and care that Sushila Aai cooks with felt familiar to her. Little did she know then that they, in-laws by relation, would bond over food as daughter and mother, and business partners. With the neighboring Indians showing interest in her mother-in-law’s snacks, Aishwarya hatched a business idea.

Aishwarya quit her corporate career in the US and launched Namkeen Queens with Sushila Aai as a co-founder. She was a seasoned product manager with years of experience navigating the dynamic landscape of product development in digital commerce. Though located in different hemispheres, they teamed up with both ‘excitement and uncertainty’ – only to start ruling as ‘Namkeen Queens’ in September 2024.

When Aishwarya pitched the idea to the family, Sushila Aai did not turn averse to cooking savories at a commercial scale. Rather, she agreed to don a home chef’s hat for herself. Commercial cooking is not difficult for her, as she cooked for large gatherings and festive occasions for years – an age-old tradition in joint Indian families. Aishwarya’s brother-in-law also stepped in to supply logistics and provide any other support to Sushila Aai in Mumbai.

Piloted by the daughter-in-law’s business acumen, the mother-in-law’s culinary artistry began to take flights to USA from India, delivering an experience, a feeling, an authentic taste that Indians abroad long for.

“Namkeen Queens is not just a brand—it’s a tribute to the rich culinary legacy of my mother-in-law (Sushila Aai). Her cooking skills and authentic recipes are at the heart of our mission. She’s a remarkable woman with incredible culinary talent. I’m committed to preserving and sharing her culinary magic with the world, turning traditional Marathi flavors into a global sensation,” Namkeen Queens’ CEO Aishwarya told Travel Beats, a leading overseas Indian community portal.

Namkeen Queens’ authentic Indians snacks are equally popular with Indian expats missing the taste of home and other ethnic groups curious about Indian flavors. Yearnings for Maa ka Khana and value for the authenticity of ingredients used keep Namkeen Queens alive as a bridge not only between Aishwarya and Sushila, but also the US and India. Aishwarya defines Namkeen Queens as “a connection to heritage, a celebration of tradition, and a way of sharing the warmth of home…”

The post Namkeen Queens: A Heartwarming Story of Saas-Bahu Bonding over Food and Serving Nostalgia in USA first appeared on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

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“A son’s true success is measured not by what he achieves, but by what he gives back to the hands that raised him.” While many senior citizens are ending up at old age homes in India, Krishna Kumar took his mother on a pilgrimage spanning four countries – without international flight tickets. He rode his late father’s old scooter with his mother sitting behind him for over 93,000 kilometers. His devotion and duty that go beyond any child’s basic responsibility of looking after his/her mother has earned him the moniker – a modern-day Shravan Kumar.

The story of Krishna Kumar and his mother’s epic pilgrimage started in January 2018. Once his mother casually mentioned she had never seen the temples of Hampi and Halebeedu. This made him realize that she had never traveled beyond Mysuru. “How small her world has been for so many years! She spent her whole life serving the joint family.” After his father passed away in 2015, she hardly stepped out of home. With this thought lying heavy on his mind, Krishna took a vow to take her to the places that she had ever dreamed of visiting.

Krishna Kumar, an engineer, quit his corporate job in Bengaluru, dusted off his late father’s 2001 model Bajaj scooter, and set out with his mother on a countrywide pilgrimage that extended to Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. To make her see the outer world, taste freedom, and live a carefree life became his life’s only mission. He named it ‘Matru Seva Sankalpa Yatra’, meaning a pledge to serve mother. While even traveling to religious places has become a leisure or luxury, this Shravana Kumar transformed it into a diving offering.

Their journey began on 18 January 2018 when he kick-started the nearly two-decade-old scooter after modifying it for his mother’s comfort. To make the road journey comfortable for her against uneven surfaces, he got the scooter upgraded with extra cushions and a backrest. For almost 6 years (excluding two years of the pandemic), they had been on road travelling more than 93,000 kilometers, from several states of India to Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar.

“I was just the charioteer. My parents were the pilgrims,” Krishna said, feeling his father’s presence with them at every step of the pilgrimage. “The sooter is not just a piece of my father’s legacy, it is his blessing for me,” he added.

You might wonder how they managed to live on the road for so long. Krishna and his mother kept things simple. They never checked in at hotels; instead, they took shelter at temples, ashrams, and dharmshalas along the way. Most of the time, temple prasad kept them on the go. Sometimes, their fulfilling meal was a most humble staple like rice and dal cooked on a small stove they carried.

Also Read: Geetha Feels Like a 20-year-old in Her 60s while Traveling with Her Son

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, they got stranded near the Bhutan border for almost two months. Krishna made sure his mother stayed safe and healthy, relying on the kindness of local people who treated them like their own. “We never felt alone, wherever we went, people became our family.” Krishna said in media interviews. Even in the most uncertain times, his focus remained clear: protecting his mother and continuing their sacred journey.

In the first year of their pilgrimage, their travel story became an inspiration for many. Even Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of the Mahindra Group, was deeply touched by it. He could not help but express his admiration through a social media post and offered him a brand-new Mahindra SUV. Krishna Kumar gratefully accepted the gesture but made sure that the SUV was not going to replace his father’s Bajaj scooter. “My journey is complete. I wanted to give my mother the experience she missed. That scooter gave us more than any SUV ever could,” he said.

Throughout their travels, Krishna never took donations, nor he turned their yatra into a social media campaign. His motivation was simple and pure: to give his mother the dignity, happiness and freedom that she deserved. His mother, who is now 75 years old, would hesitate to travel even to a relative’s house. Today, she is a travel inspiration for many. She bathed in the Ganga, climbed sacred hills, visited historic places she had only heard about in stories, and met people from various cultural backgrounds.

This exclusive story is brought to you by Travel Beats, a leading community portal by Indian Eagle Travel. IndianEagle.com, the most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians and Americans in the US, offers unbeatable fare deals and books best flights for senior citizens’ solo travel, with focus on their comfort and convenience. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and follow us on Instagram for more stories.

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John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, said in 1959, “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis’. One stands for danger, the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger, but recognize the opportunity.” More than sixty years later, his words are more relevant than ever, especially in current times of US visa rejections and immigration crackdowns.

What John F. Kennedy said in 1959 rings true about Saransh Goila, a celebrity chef and entrepreneur in India. Aiming to encourage thousands of Indians navigating US visa interviews and immigration challenges only to face rejection, Chef Saransh Goila shared an interesting anecdote on Instagram. How his life tumbled after he was denied a US visitor visa in 2011, how he overcame the feeling as if there was no tomorrow, and how it became a turning point resonated with many Indians.

In his 20s, Saransh Goila was fascinated with the idea of traveling to the US and making it to Food Network. He gathered all his savings for flight tickets to Los Angeles, but the US visa rejection crushed his hopes and made him feel like this was the end of his world. However, “what happens, happens for good” – is what he believes now. The closed door to America led him to the other end of the tunnel where a better opportunity was awaiting him.

Exactly one month later, life surprised him. He got a call from Food Food TV for audition that turned his fortune around unpredictably. What appeared like a bolt from the blue was actually a response to the email that he had sent to the channel in 2010. He was shortlisted as a contestant for the FoodFood Maha Challenge 2011 hosted by Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and Bollywood diva, Madhuri Dixit. He won the competition and became a household name in India.

In a 2016 interview with Sourav Agarwal, Senior Editor at Travel Beats, a leading community portal for Indian Diaspora, Chef Saransh Goila gave a sneak peek of his 20,000km food marathon across India as part of Food Food channel’s ‘Roti Rasta aur India’ program. He documented his observations, experiences, and insights from the culinary food trip in the book titled “India on My Platter.”

His growing popularity earned him invitation to showcase Indian Cuisine in the United States in March 2012. This was the time he realized that good things happen at the right time.

Chef Saransh Goila had a completely different experience during his US visa interview the second time. “Why was your visa rejected the first time? I can’t understand,” a young interviewer at the US Consulate told him. With a gentle smile, the consular officer also told him that the chef did not need to carry any newspaper clippings to prove himself. Rather, he said, “Can you teach me more about Indian food?” A surprise to Saransh beyond his imagination!

After making a name for himself on Indian Television, Saransh Goila went on to build something of his own- Goila Butter Chicken, a brand that has now grown to over 100 locations across India and London. He is also planning to take his signature butter chicken to the USA very soon. In 2019, Saransh was featured in Forbes India’s Celebrity 100 list. He was recognized as the youngest Celebrity Chef in the list of Top 10 Chefs in India.

Reflecting on the journey, he wrote on social media, “If I had gone earlier to the US, who knows I might have struggled all my life. My rejection made me who I am today.” Saransh Goila’s journey from the first-time visa rejection to the invitation from USA reminds us that rejection does not always mean failure. Not all visa rejections are utter disappointments. In fact, for some, it is the push they need to find success in ways they have never imagined.

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“A ship is safe in harbor. But that is not what ships are built for.” Similarly, some people are born to break from household confines, cross the seven seas, and travel across geographies. This is true about Molly Joy, a humble grocery shopkeeper from Kerala. The 65-year-old granny, who had never gone out of her village before and after marriage, prides herself on being a globetrotter with grey hairs. She funds her international flights and trips with her modest savings from the grocery store that she has been running single-handedly since her husband’s untimely demise in 2004.

Molly has been to more than 11 countries, including the US, the UK, and Singapore, in the past 10 years. Bitten by the wanderlust bug in childhood, she used to feel elated at the mere thought of traveling the country. But her low-income family in a village near Kochi City could not even pay fees to send her on school trips. Misty memories of those days, though buried in the grave of the past, made her belief, “You can’t cross the sea merely by staring at the water.”

She was married off in 1986. There was a magazine stand in her husband’s grocery store. She would borrow the travel magazine to read travelogues and destination stories – which provided her a window to the vast world outside of her everyday life in the village. It fed her imagination about the faraway places and nurtured her innermost desire to visit those places. But her husband’s sudden death in 2004 did not let her wanderlust bloom. She alone had to shoulder the responsibility of running the shop and raising the children.

After her children grew up enough to stand on their feet, Molly got a passport for her first international trip in 2012. With her own savings, as well as the children’s support and financial help, she travelled to Europe. France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy were stopovers in her 15-day itinerary. “I was concerned about the expense a little, but my desire to travel mitigated the concern. The dream of standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, leafing through the history of Rome at the heritage sites including the Colosseum, and taking scenic train rides in the Swiss Alps was too overwhelming to be overshadowed by anything,” said Molly Joy.

The first trip to Europe was just the threshold that she had crossed to pursue her dreams. Her next travel was to Singapore and Malaysia in 2017. During the 5-year break, she accumulated savings by running the shop for extra hours even on weekends and holidays. Between her two foreign tours – one in 2012 and the other in 2017, she travelled across South India. Madurai, Mysore, Ooty, Kanyakumari, Kodaikanal, Puducherry, Gokarna, and Udupi found space in her travel album. Some tourist attractions in North India also became part of her travel memoirs.

A second trip to Europe happened to be her call in 2019. This time, she visited London, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, and Sweden. “I have not had enough of Europe. The countries are so beautiful and full of history that I wish to make another trip to Europe someday. Travel gives me an amazing sense of freedom. After every trip, instead of feeling exhausted, I feel reborn. I impatiently wait for the next journey,” she said ebulliently.

Early in 2020, the pandemic brought international travel restrictions. Meanwhile, she saved money and geared up for her first trip to the United States. After the second wave of the pandemic receded from India and before the cost of international air tickets shot up, she took a flight to the US in November 2021. The northeast US cities formed a major part of the itinerary. She visited Newark, New York City, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh and other cities during the 15-day trip. “The Niagara Falls near Buffalo, the Universal Studio in Las Vegas, and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco are the best experiences I will cherish forever,” said Molly Joy.

“She is an ultimate travel inspiration. She reminds me of a most popular saying, ‘Never get so busy making a living that you forget to live’,” said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats, a leading overseas Indian community portal by IndianEagle.com, the most trusted travel-booking partner of Indians in America.

The post With Modest Savings from Her Grocery Shop, This Single Indian Mother Has Traveled to 11 Countries in 10 Years first appeared on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

The post With Modest Savings from Her Grocery Shop, This Single Indian Mother Has Traveled to 11 Countries in 10 Years appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

In the 1970s when Mumbai was Bombay; when Lijjat Papad was catching up with Indian taste buds; when Premier Padmini taxis hit the roads of Bombay; when taking Air India flights was a matter of prestige; when Bombay was greener than Mumbai; when Amitabh Bachchan was the new poster boy of Bollywood, a simple Gujarati homemaker from a one-room chawl in South Bombay took the first step towards becoming India’s Bhel Queen. Nila Mehta, who became a household name for her homemade Gujarati delicacies and a brand abroad, lived her passion until she breathed her last on October 15, 2019.

Nila Mehta’s journey from selling dhokla door-to-door to becoming the Bhel Queen of Mumbai City to being popular among overseas Indians is not just a rags-to-riches story, but an inspiring story of India’s women power. Before Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon were born in a garage in the US, “Nita Mehta snacks” started making its way from the tiny chawl on Napean Sea Road to rule the taste buds of Bombayites.

Nila Mehta, who shifted to Bombay from Gujarat, took to stitching clothes to make the ends meet for a household of six before she turned her passion for cooking into a profession. Unhappy with the petty income from her ordeal of stitching garments, she decided to explore her versatility and expertise in cooking. One day she cooked some twenty packets of dhokla for the local women’s association where women from the upper reaches of society took fancy to her delicacy – which made her homemade dhokla a hot cake in South Bombay.

Orders of her delicious dhokla started pouring in despite no delivery mechanism from her end. At times, she would send her son to make the delivery to remote parts of the city. Before two decades of India’s IT boom, her newly found success as a home-based businesswoman was fraught with difficulties and challenges.

Being a wonder woman, Nila Mehta managed to take orders over the phone though her one-room apartment was on the fourth floor, there was no elevator and the building had only one telephone (on the ground floor). The chawl dwellers including her family had to manage with one-hour of water supply every day due to acute water crisis in South Bombay. Braving all odds, she used to complete the orders on time.

Her dhokla being a staple on the menu for local celebrations, religious events and illustrious weddings, Nila Mehta was the unrivaled ‘Dhokla Queen of Bombay’ from 1980 to 1995. Alongside dhokla – the key to her success, other popular Gujarati sweets and snacks from her repertoire were making their way to hundreds of households and shops in the non-social media era.

As dhokla is a fast perishable item, she was not able to venture out beyond Bombay. To make way for her business into other markets of the country, she took fancy to Mumbai’s new gastronomic fascination – bhel in the second half of the 1990s (Bombay was renamed Mumbai in 1995). Since it was possible to export bhel in airtight packets to any corner of the country, she started taking orders from other metro cities. It made her the ‘Bhel Queen of India’, a few levels up from the “Dhokla Queen of Bombay”.

Over time “Nila Mehta snacks” including mouth-watering bhel found space at Indian stores in the USA, the UK, Australia, Singapore and other countries, and became a hit with NRIs there. The offshore revenue helped Nila Mehta open brand outlets across Mumbai and in other parts of Maharashtra.

Her demise is not an end to the brand “Nila Mehta Snacks”. May this wonder woman of India continue to inspire generations with her entrepreneurial journey and rags-to-riches story!

This story is brought to you by Travel Beats as part of the continued series, “Explore India with Indian Eagle”. Travel Beats is a leading overseas Indian community portal by Indian Eagle, a trusted travel-booking partner of Indians abroad.

The post Nila Mehta, a Simple Gujarati Homemaker from One-room Chawl, became India’s Bhel Queen and a Favorite of NRIs first appeared on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

The post Nila Mehta, a Simple Gujarati Homemaker from One-room Chawl, became India’s Bhel Queen and a Favorite of NRIs appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.