Day two at Bloggy Boogie began with an oops moment. Before I went on to introduce Parnashree Devi to the curious audience at St. Xavier’s College, I realized that we’d made a stupid mistake at the first workshop with Jaipur Women Blog.

The email ID had to be revised since we’d made a teeny tiny mistake.

I introduced Parnashree and her blog My Travel Diary to the audience after the Head of the Department Ms. Ranjeet Kaur gave Parnashree a warm welcome, “As a kid, Delhi girl Parnashree would watch black and white Television and color the picture up in her mind. She took up the profession of a photo-editor and realized how it was virtual travel for her. Then one day, she saw a picture of a cottage on a hilltop in the Himalayas that inspired her to take up traveling professionally. And, that’s how she visited Uttarakhand.”

Parnashree started the talk with a short video about locations in Delhi. She asked the audience if there were any who were passionate to travel! There were a few who were working as freelancers with blogs on assignments.

A professional, who was also attending the workshop talked about a tech blog that she had been working on. Exciting, right?

Parnashree further went on to explain the importance of a photograph. “It doesn’t matter how you click a picture, you can use a phone or a camera, but the only thing that matters the most is your perspective and the angle you click a picture with.”

When you’re traveling, your photographs should concentrate on capturing the emotions of people, and the essence of the culture.

“I love Rajasthan. It has so many beautiful colors and humble people. I can come to Rajasthan a million times, and I will still not get over it.”

We had a fun question for the audience at this point. “I know we all travel, but there’s a travel sin that we all make. We all steal the toiletries! Honestly, how many of you do that?” I asked the crazy bunch.

There were many giggles and laughs in the background, and some brave ones confessed that they did. One of them came forward and said, “I always take them because I pay for it.”

There was a wave of laughter that filled the room, and Parnashree invited the audience to participate with the audience in a very interesting exercise.

“Using words, draw a landscape, and pretend it is a postcard! Use words that you’d want to use as a traveler.”

The audience got to work. Parnashree and I looked around to observe what was going on around the tables. We found some really interesting stuff!

Parnashree asked everyone if they fell in love with random people when they traveled because she swore that she did. I loved Ritu ma’am’s reply to her question.

“Not one, not two, or three. I’ve fallen in love with about 500 kinds of people. Sometimes, it’s a Labrador, sometimes a German Shepherd and pugs get me weak in the knees.”

My Travel Diary blogger Parnashree continued to talk about travel ethics and interacting with the locals of your travel destination.

“It is essential that we respect and value the locals since it is their homeland. No one can guide you better about their homeland than the locals. They are really the best guides!”

The audience was curious to know how long it takes to begin earning money from travel blogging.

“Well, it definitely doesn’t happen instantly. Traveling is an expensive profession. Initially, you will have to invest, and slowly but steadily, when your work takes off, and people start noticing you, you’ll begin to get travel gigs. At the same time, if you sign up with ad sense, the clicks will decide how much Google pays you!”

Parnashree goes to Shimla next and comes back to Rajasthan after that. Ah, just if we could have a life like hers. Imagine living like a vagabond.

A rich vagabond, at that. *wink* *wink*

Sanchit Sethi
Photographer