She is usually spotted at various trade events and shows, with a soft smile – always ready to share a gentle word. Classy and confident, one wouldn’t believe that this soft and subtle lady has climbed many a mountain peaks, taken her infant babies on treks, driven on rocky and snow-laden terrains and can bake a banana cake to absolutely die for! Arshdeep Anand, Co-Founder and CEO, Holiday Moods Adventures Pvt Ltd and the ‘Better Half’ of Tejbir Singh Anand, is not just an ideal wife but a perfect mother and a wonderful house-maker too, which is evident the moment you walk into their den – their abode that tells their story – a travel aficionado couple who is not afraid to take things head on. She shares her journey in an exclusive with BOTT.
Priyanka Saxena Ray
There are some people whose exuberance is tough to match – Arshdeep is that person for me. While I have known her for years, having met her at various trade events, I never thought that this soft spoken lady will not just turn out to be a power-house of energy and talent but will also be extremely fierce and independent in her thoughts and way of life. Born and brought up in Amritsar, she was nurtured in a very sheltered atmosphere as those were the times when the city was facing terrorist’s insurgency. After completing her graduation from Amritsar, she pursued MBA in Finance and just as she was eligible to sit for campus placements, her family sought an alliance for her. The marriage was fixed without the couple having ever met each other!
“When Tejbir and I met for the first time, we hit it off immediately! Our thoughts, ideologies, likes-dislikes matched so much – it just made me believe that yes, marriages are indeed made in heaven,” reminisces Arshdeep and the slight blush on her face, even after 25 years of marriage, is testimony to the love that reigns supreme between the couple. Being a trained and an experienced mountaineer, Tejbir introduced the world of adventure to me. As she proudly says, “I got married into adventure!” After marriage, they both were involved in the family timber business but they felt their calling was elsewhere. The couple would go for many adventure holidays together.
“Three years after the marriage, we set up our own adventure travel company (21 years ago when it was rare to hear about travel companies with this specialization) and thus was born Holiday Moods Adventures Pvt Ltd in winters of 1997. My first trek was to the Jaunsar region in Garhwal, known as the source of the river Yamuna along with Tons river to the valley of Har-Ki-Dun in June 1994. It will always remain a special memory for me. It was remote, beautiful and breathtaking as if out of a movie set– it was absolutely surreal,” she gushes. This was just the beginning and after this, she went on to many more adventure enriching experiences – treks, expeditions, high altitude jeep safaris, white water rafting, wildlife, paragliding etc in the coming years.
She took a sabbatical of sorts when her daughter was born, but that did not deter her from being actively involved in the decisions regarding a major milestone of their life. Travelling for adventure and selling adventure travel are far different from each other is something that this couple realised early in business. Learning from their mistakes, they experimented, followed the hit and trial philosophy and worked long hard hours to reach the successful landmark where they stand today. “We started with one flagship stellar award winning program, which was very popular at that time – “HEAT” – Himalayan Environment & Adventure Trek. The first trail was set up in Kinnaur in 1998 and then went on to many valleys across the states of Uttarakhand & Himachal Pradesh for the next 20 years! The USP of the trail was that it was never repeated, giving employment in the remotest parts of the country, teaching skill sets and building capacities amongst the tiniest Himalayan hamlets. NATGEO Adventure top rated them and they won the National Award from the Ministry of Tourism. Later, we started exploring and adding new treks to our kitty and introducing them to the domestic markets. As avid adventurers, we had the advantage of selling experiential adventure holiday experience, which became a big hit with our clients. They started requesting us to plan their other holidays also and we realised that it was time to expand our umbrella of services,” Arshdeep shares.
With a vision to expand their business and trail blaze new concepts, they purchased 12 acres land near the rock climbing zone at Lake Dhauj in 2004 and set up an activity base called ‘Camp Wild’ at Aravali Valley. With 27 accommodation units in place, running on a highly-eco-friendly model, the camp is still the only adventure camp of its kind in Delhi NCR that plays frequent host to prestigious schools, MICE groups, corporate team building offsite, families, inbound groups etc. In 2012, they set up their next project near Dharamshala, called “Snow Monk Camp” which is Dhauladhar Himalaya’s first multi activity trekking permanent base camp.
Listening to her talk about her work, one wouldn’t imagine that she has been a hands-on mother most of her life, with her kids as her priority always. “While work was obviously important and I was part of all the decision making, for me, my kids and family were always a priority. My work schedule, over the last two decades, has revolved around their time table. As a family, we still go on a lot of adventure holidays together and that played an important role in shaping up their personalities. Now that they all drive, the latest trend is of self drive high altitude jeep safaris that they want to do in the Himalayas. However, education for us is very important and we have passed on those values to our children also. They were made clear from the start that after their graduation from Delhi, they can choose universities and the course they deem fit anywhere in the world for post graduation,” says a mother beaming with pride.
Now that the children are grown up – Priyam (daughter) is 22 and would soon be joining the Trinity College, University of Dublin in Ireland for her Masters in International Management while Birentej (son) is 18 and pursuing his graduation from Delhi University; Arshdeep has more time on her hands now and is pushed by her kids to travel more often for marketing & product development trips.
Music has been an integral part of her life. She was a trained singer till University level, a passion that somewhere got lost, till her children gifted a synthesizer on her birthday, which she is now re-learning to play. She is equally passionate about writing poetry and has penned more than 50 short poems till date. She is a gifted artist and loves to sketch paint when in the mood. A close knit family that even has the name of their dog ingrained on their home name plate, Arshdeep finds pleasures in simple things that the family does together – be it going to the gym or sharing a hot cup of coffee or dancing! It was truly an afternoon well-spent getting to know this marvellous, vivacious, multi talented lady, who has so many sides to her.
