For two years, I lived in England. I travelled the length of it and made friends from Peru, Oman, Nigeria, China, and from England itself. I came home with more photographs than I could count.
When I look through them now, I find I have already lost half of what they held. When our Japanese course ended, a few of us took our lecturer to dinner to thank her. She encouraged us to try a Japanese plum wine, and it was delicious. I cannot remember its name now, or the restaurant's, or the street it was on. Worst of all, I cannot remember what she and I talked about, only that it was a lovely conversation.
The pictures kept the places. They did not keep what it felt like to be there.
You may have a shelf like it: somewhere everyone at your table has been, photographed, and put away.
I wished someone had written it down for me. Something I could open years later and read as if for the first time, until, line by line, it came back.
That is what Narada does. Before you leave, we listen, and then we write your journey as a book: one edition, yours. Then we make it happen. Afterwards it stays on your shelf, waiting for the day you have forgotten enough to be surprised by it, and for the people who come after you.
I would rather do this for a few people properly than for many people quickly.
If there is a journey you want to remember long after the photographs have gone quiet, write to me. The first conversation is always with me, and it is never about a place.
Ansh Lakhanpaul
Founder, Narada
P.S. Write to me at house@thenarada.com.
