From The Latest Issue: The Skill Of Adventure

The first time Smruti Mirani went scuba diving, she was 18. It was 2010, and the experience was brief enough to leave her wanting more.

For years, the curiosity stayed. She read about diving, looked for opportunities to return to the water and eventually completed her Open Water certification. More dives followed, along with longer periods in the Andamans. It was there, in 2022, that she watched friends disappear beneath the surface without oxygen tanks and wondered how they did it.

They were freediving, a sport in which divers descend underwater on a single breath, without scuba equipment. Mirani remembers wanting to tell them, “Teach me.”

Curiosity turned into training. She progressed through different levels, travelled to Bali to improve and eventually became a freediving instructor herself. Years after she had watched others from the surface, she found herself several metres underwater in the Andamans as a child looked on. When she came up, he looked at her and said, “Teach me.” For Mirani, it felt like coming full circle.

Her journey also captures what can happen when an adventure does not end with the first attempt. Learning requires more time in one place, repeated failures, close attention to conditions and the acceptance that improvement may take a while.

Adventure tourism in India is growing rapidly. According to San Francisco-based market research firm Grand View Research, India’s adventure tourism market is expected to reach USD 86.4 billion by 2033, growing at an annual rate of 20.9 per cent between 2026 and 2033. Within that larger market, there is space for a slower kind of adventure trip, where trying an activity becomes the reason to stay longer and learn it properly.

When The Thrill Slows Down

Jehan Driver has witnessed that transition repeatedly along the coast of Rameswaram.

At Quest Adventure Sports Academy, which he runs, first-timers can begin with a two-hour Discover Kitesurfing session. Kitesurfing involves riding across the water on a board while a controllable kite harnesses the wind. The introductory session takes place on land and gives beginners a chance to understand the kite before deciding whether to continue.

Some are happy simply to have tried it. Driver said the ones who return often start asking questions. Why did the kite fall? Why did it pull them off balance? What could they have done differently?

Often, hours are spent controlling a kite on sand, only to be followed by failed starts and repeated falls. Some days, the conditions rule out getting into the water altogether.

“Adventure is often marketed through its most spectacular moments, whether that is a jump or a clean ride,” said Driver, who is also General Secretary of the Surfing Federation of India. “Almost none of it is the hours of dragging a kite through the sand on land before you’re ever allowed near the water.”

Progress cannot be hurried. Anne Mathias, a mountaineer and white-water kayaker who has worked as a safety kayaker in India and Nepal, said technique needs repetition before it becomes muscle memory. Trying to accelerate those early stages, particularly in environments where mistakes carry consequences, only raises the chances of injury.

Freediving demands the same patience, although much of the work happens internally. Mirani said fitness matters, especially as divers progress, but so do breath, composure and the body’s response to fear. She described the sport as a “litmus test” for what is happening within a person.

Learning To Read The Landscape

Spend enough time learning a sport, and the surroundings begin to change, too.

On the Ganga in Rishikesh, Vaibhav Kala begins by asking new kayakers to watch the river’s surface. At Aquaterra Adventures, beginners at its four-day kayak clinic learn that water moving downstream is far from uniform.

“On day one, before they’re even paddling, we’re pointing out the difference between smooth, glassy water and water that’s broken or churned up, and asking them to guess why,” Kala said.

By the second day, students practise ferry-gliding, which involves angling a kayak against the current to cross the river and entering and leaving eddies, pockets of calmer water beside the main flow. They begin to feel where the current pushes the boat and how its force can be used instead of fought. Whitewater that first appeared chaotic starts to break into lines, waves, obstructions, and places to pause.

“A traveller sees whitewater as spectacle— big, chaotic, exciting,” Kala said. “A kayaker sees it as a language.”

Mathias found something similar happening in the mountains. Before mountaineering and skiing, she said she largely saw them as enormous masses of rock, mud and snow. Training changed what she noticed.

“Now I notice terrain, snow, weather, slope angles, exposure and possible hazards,” she said. “I’ve started reading the landscape rather than just looking at it.”

Driver now instinctively does much the same on unfamiliar coastlines. He checks the wind and tide, notices reefs and rocks and looks for a safe place to launch. Technical knowledge, however, only goes so far. He also seeks out fishermen, boatmen and local instructors whose understanding of a coast has been built over years.

Diving gave Mirani a similar respect for local conditions. A sea that appears calm can change within an hour. Talking to instructors and dive buddies about wind and currents became part of preparing to enter the water.

“You learn to respect the ocean,” she said.

From Visitor To Participant

Driver came to Rameswaram in 2012 after leaving his job in Mumbai, drawn in part by its kitesurfing conditions, and stayed. Most visitors know Rameswaram through its temple and Dhanushkodi. Time spent learning the coast through wind and water introduced him to another side of the place, shaped by the Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Reserve, the monsoons and fishing communities along the shore.

Kitesurfing made him pay attention not just to conditions, but to the people who understood them best. He began to notice fishing methods, boats, and the knowledge of those who had spent their lives on the water. That instinct now follows him when he travels. On an unfamiliar coast, local fishermen and boatmen are often among the first people he seeks out.

For Mathias, adventure opened up places in a similar way. Spending months there changed what she took away from those journeys. “I stopped romanticising and idealising those places and began understanding the ground realities that locals face,” she said.

She found a similar connection through kayaking. The sport brought her into contact with paddlers, guides and communities whose lives were tied to those waterways. Over time, those relationships deepened. She was invited to weddings and family functions, and people called to share news of a birth, a new job or difficult periods at home.

That closeness can also make tourism’s impact harder to ignore. Mathias said knowing people who depend on a river, mountain, or forest has made her more conscious of how she behaves and where she spends money. Mirani pointed to one of the contradictions of marine adventure. Diving may bring people closer to the ocean, but reaching dive sites often requires fuel-intensive boats.

Adventure may be what brings someone to a place, but learning it closely can sharpen your attention to everything around it, from the landscape and its people to the impact of being there. That attention often outlasts the trip. Long after the equipment has been returned, the next time you stand beside a river or arrive at a stretch of coast, there is simply more to see.

Where To Learn

Quest Adventure Sports Academy, Rameswaram: Kitesurfing, windsurfing, kayaking, sailing and scuba diving. quest-asia.com

Aquaterra Adventures, Rishikesh: Four-day beginner kayaking clinic on the Ganga that moves from basic paddling and safety techniques to handling currents, rolling and Class III rapids. aquaterra.in

Divers of Vingoria, Bhogwe: Freediving, scuba diving and kiteboarding on the Sindhudurg coast. diversofvingoria.com

Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi: Mountaineering, skiing and sport-climbing courses. nimindia.net

Looking for more such exciting and meaningful stories? Grab our latest issue on Amazon.