She didn’t like just sitting in an office and designing buildings. So, she left her profession as an architect in 2018 and started travelling far and wide.
The 27-year-old Niharika Arora still carries the passion to design – not buildings but stories from far-flung areas of India like Kargil, Drass, and Kutch.
Niharika, a travel vlogger, now travels the length and breadth of India and brings fascinating stories of grit, determination, inspiration, and courage through her channel Iffy Explorer.
She is currently touring Indian international borders where she is exploring the regions and villages which are located extremely on the border side. She had visited Zero in Arunachal, Sikkim, Ladakh, Kargil District, Drass, and many places in Kashmir, Gujarat, Tribal area of MP, and offbeat areas of Uttarakhand.
Niharika thinks that both architecture and travel are closely related to each other. “While being an architect, I went to Chitkul’s villages in 2017 which is based near the Indo-Tibetan border. To excel in architecture, one has to travel,” Niharika said.
“I realized that I like traveling more than I like just sitting in an office while designing buildings. So I thought about travelling for a year and from then, I have been travelling for four years,” she said.
“My current project ‘whatsattheborder’ was born because people who are living in metro cities don’t know about such places, how people are living there and what is happening there,” she added.
“That is why I am travelling to those regions which are located in the international border areas and these all regions are very beautiful because people should know about these regions and life of people who live here,” she further added.
“I choose these border regions because most of the time these regions are neglected and we should know about the tradition, communication and life at the border,” she explained.
While travelling in Kutch, she met Iamail Ali Sama, who has spent 13 years in Pakistan jail. “He gave me a pen as a special gift. During his 13 years in Pakistan jail, he made this pen there and 786 was written on the pen.”
She also met a group of women in Bhuj and met those who repaired the airstrip during Operation Trident, the 1971 Indo-Pak war, which was destroyed by the Pakistan Air Force. All those local women were given the title of Viranganas later. Later, this was made into a Bollywood movie, Bhuj on the occasion of 50 years of Operation Trident.
While travelling to Kargil and Drass, she covered stories of Operation Vijay, the Indo-Pak Kargil War in 1999. She met the first informer of the Kargil War and said that “Mohd Yusuf Loan was a shepherd who was with his goats and he saw something and he passed the information to the Indian Army as soon as possible. He was not an army person and was a simple human but he fulfilled his responsibility as a citizen of India.”
“Kargil War was not merely won on the martyrdom of young Indian soldiers, but because of the experience of senior Indian Army officers and the support of locals in the region,” Niharika added. “They carried food and water for them during the war.”
Niharika, who works as a freelancer, said, “I am my own boss and I can operate my work from anywhere: from the mountains, the borders, and the villages. Society, my family, and especially, people who are watching my videos, are praising my content because they want to know the stories and my content is story-based.”