'Climb Every Mountain' Says All India Permit, Sikkim

Proprietor of a unique travel company called All India Permit, Kanupriya is not the first in the clan to pursue entrepreneurship

- Bhairavi Jani

At the beginning of time, man was an explorer. Rajasthan’s Marwari community of mostly small business owners took this aspect of human nature rather seriously and spread throughout the country’s big and small towns like sugar in milk. When you meet Kanupriya Raniwala in the midst of the high mountain sides of West Sikkim, you realize not much has changed through history.

Call of the Valley

Proprietor of a unique travel company called All India Permit, Kanupriya is not the first in the clan to pursue entrepreneurship. Hailing from an illustrious business family in Kota, Rajasthan, Kanupriya landed in Sikkim three years ago for her first high altitude trek with a group of strangers. ‘Mt Kanchendzonga in its morning

light as a deity brought tears in my eyes,’ says young Raniwala reminiscing about her tramp down to the base camp. It occurred to her how deeply buried in their cell phones people in the big cities were, disillusioned by the promised good life. That was Kanupriya’s turning point - she decided to bring people from the farthest corners of the country up in the lap of the Himalayas, share her experience and help them make their own. She calls it ‘a life changing decision.’

Serendipity Strikes

Serendipity did not strike the young travel entrepreneur on a week-long hiking trip. It was long in the coming. In the absence of internet as we know it today and the little data available online, Kanupriya as a college student would preserve article cut-outs and make notes on the Northeast from travel magazines. Hungry for more exposure and a yearning to learn and grow through architecture, music, travel and meeting people, heading to the Northeast came almost instinctively to her at the time.