Late last year, I visited Dibang Valley, lived with an indigenous tribe and dove into their culture along with four strangers. It was a life-changing experience and I have Shreyas to thank for it.
Shreyas is the founder of MapMyStories, a traveller and a storyteller all at once. He began exploring corners of the country - backpacking, trekking, biking - as a fresh-faced college grad finding his footing in the world, until he stumbled upon slow travelling. What ensued was months-long immersions into the daily lives of indigenous tribes, the Idu Mishmi and the Lepchas, and their cultures and the nature that surrounds them. When he decided he wanted to share these experiences with the rest of the world, he started curating “journeys” on MapMyStories, where he picks small groups of like-minded travellers and takes them into the laps of Sikkim and Arunachal - monastic painting, caving, brewing local beer, making bamboo rafts and many more such experiential activities.
What stood out to me personally, as a traveller on his journeys, was his deep care for these places and their people. Shreyas ensures that these journeys bring benefits, monetary and otherwise, to the people of the tribes who have welcomed him and his travellers with open arms into their homes. He bans geotagging - announcing a location on social media, because of how harmful such exposure can be. He organises donation drives for disaster-prone areas and uses his platform to gather funds, and he constantly pushes youngsters in these tribes to preserve their cultures and traditions as they pursue their individual passions.
As he completes 3 years of journeys on MapMyStories and is on the cusp of exploring his passion for filmmaking, I wanted to sit down with him to chat about everything - how MapMyStories began, what his personal principles are and what he’s doing to hone his craft. Here are a few excerpts.
Why did you start MapMyStories, and what do you want for it to become?
It started as this YouTube channel in 2019. Before that, I was fresh out of college, on a gap year travelling — so I decided to document my travels in the form of vlogs. It was fun but I wasn’t really inspired or purpose-driven.
Then the pandemic came, and in 2021, I realised I was tired of creating content on Youtube because of the constant focus on numbers - subscribers, views, things like that.
It was around this time that I started slow travelling. I had been backpacking and travelling before, but this was a different version of it, something that was much much slower than what's out there right now (in the world of backpacking & travel.) I revisited Sikkim and Dibang and stayed there for months. Those experiences felt more meaningful and I built a true connection with these places and their people.
I think everyone got a bit existential during the pandemic. I started wondering, “where is my place in this world?” and “what should I do with my life?” That’s when I started curating these journeys on MapMyStories and started taking people along for a slow travel experience with the two tribes that I connected with.
What do I want for it to become? Nothing really. I’m happy with where it is right now. I don't think I'm adding more trips or turning it into a serious travel company. If anything, I'd like to start adding my filmmaking projects to MapMyStories.
I remember you talking about a course you took - a course by Shivya Nath, one about travelling the world with purpose.
Yes I did. Her course is targeted towards people who want to become travel influencers, travel storytellers and the like. It's about finding your voice as a creator and building your niche without getting swayed by trends online.
Honestly, I wanted to do this course because I was struggling with bookings on my journeys last year and just kept asking myself, “What am I doing wrong?” I was putting a lot of effort into these pretty videos on social media, but the algorithms were not supporting me and clearly, none of it was resonating with people.
I did the course at the right time, I think. It helped me tell my stories in a much more authentic way. Recently, I completed another creative camp by a content creator on Instagram, Shibani Mitra. I did it because I think she has a very unique perspective of her surroundings and I wanted to challenge my creativity. I have been seeing the world very objectively when I film, so I want to start noticing these nuances. The course has helped, and I'm excited to practise the learnings through the mode of creative expression I want to explore now. People have writing and painting and all, and I’ve learnt that mine is videography.
When you stayed in Sikkim and Dibang, you made some strong bonds with the people there - bonds that are evident in the MapMyStories journeys you do. What are some of the practices you learnt from these communities that you have made a part of your own life?
For me, the biggest takeaway was the notion of a slow life, a life that’s removed from the race. Nobody does it better than indigenous communities, you know?
The notion is not a part of any and all communities in nature; it's specifically indigenous tribal communities. If you go to Himachal for example, you will come across communities who are living in nature, but they're not tribal communities. They've transitioned to be more agricultural, and they have picked up a slightly faster life and everything that comes with it.
But here, these indigenous communities are living much simpler lives. I mean, you’ve seen it for yourself on the journeys. I found that to be much richer than the life we are chasing in cities so I do value that a lot now - living a slow life without being very materialistic.
I’m realising more and more that slow living is a mindset. You don't need to have a cottage in the hills and a huge farm to get into the mindset. It can be practised in small ways, even though it's much harder in the city because there's so many distractions.
Ofcourse, it’s easier said than done. I acknowledge that I come from privilege which allows me the freedom to take time out to design a life the way I want to. In these communities too, there are people struggling to pay bills and living paycheck to paycheck so I don’t want to paint a rosy picture.
I’ve also learnt the value of community and being one with nature.
In Bangalore, for example, it’s very rare to see people saying hi to each other in neighbourhoods and streets. Everyone's on their own. It’s a hyper individualistic society. The idea of being an independent individual has been put up on a pedestal. This has led to a complete detachment from the sense of community.
Even if we form a community, it’s very transactional. In the places I went to in Sikkim and Dibang, it’s a much more organic kind of community. This sense of community also doesn’t show up everywhere you travel to. You get it only in certain places. I've visited many other places that are objectively much prettier than the places we went to in Sikkim and Arunachal, but there was no sense of community that made me want to go back there.
I’m curious to know about the aspirations of these communities and how they look at jobs and money.
Pem, who you met in Sikkim, likes music and adventure but he’s also very politically and socially inclined. He did social work as a panchayat president and continues to do so. Now, he wants to get into adventure, cycling and mountain biking. Lendup got a comfortable job, not the one that he had hoped for, but he's happy with it and gets to do photography every now and then. My close friends in Dibang also have interesting aspirations — one of them is working in conservation and wants to do a thesis. Another friend wants to become an influencer and is figuring out her style (I’m nudging her towards becoming a responsible creator)
They all have dreams, different exciting ones, but none of them involve leaving their home.
Liquidity is generally very low there. They are rich but in another sense. They have uncontaminated land, fresh air, water etc.
With the mainstream internet now making its way to these places, a lot more materialistic aspirations are going to come and take root in people’s dreams. It will happen naturally. They will start wanting to find the quickest ways to make money much like us city folks. It’s not wrong to want money - we all do, but when you look for shortcuts, it will end up doing damage to the environment or your culture.
That's why, through my journeys, I try to bring awareness to these communities and let them know that there are many ways to preserve their culture and traditions, and still make money. That was the whole vision behind journeys on MapMyStories. It's working. They're seeing the value in what they're doing - like the monastic painters in Sikkim. When I first pitched the idea, they looked at me like I was crazy. “Who would pay for this?” because for them it’s just a mundane activity that they’ve seen all their lives. But now with these journeys, they get it.
I remember that you were trying to find youngsters to train them in the dying art of bamboo mug-making in both Sikkim and Dibang. Have you?
Last year, I saved some money to get a craftsman in Sikkim to train a few unemployed youngsters to get them to learn to make mugs so that we can set up something like an Etsy shop - but then the floods happened and the craftsman's village got disconnected and we really didn't have the mental bandwidth to move on from it all.
In Arunachal, it's been difficult because the youngsters are not interested in this like the Sikkimese. I don’t really want to shove it down their throats. It’s not something that can be forced. I was actually just talking to an activist who is part of the anti-dam movement in Dibang - @theriseofdibang. She's from the Adi tribe in lower Dibang. We were discussing their needs for funds for legal fees, spreading the word, and sustaining themselves. Their only source right now is donations and that’s just not the most sustainable source.
We were brainstorming that maybe we'll kick off this mug-making business and include other local products too, so that they can have a recurring source of income. This idea is still in the early stages. With the Idu Mishmi tribe in Dibang, there are some traditional rules around men having to do the bamboo handicraft work while women do the weaving. It might be changing now, but keeping this tradition in mind, no one young is interested.
I will still try.
Why filmmaking and why now? What stories do you want to tell?
I’ve been hosting these journeys for three years now and it’s quite fulfilling but at the same time I think I’m plateauing. I want to grow and see what’s next, and my inclination is towards this buried dream of mine — filmmaking.
Growing up, I watched a lot of documentaries and used to make some as well on my little digicam (I’ve buried them for good reason). Before social media, the filmmaking world was largely gatekept, felt very mystified and unattainable. It was an unrealistic dream, especially coming from Bangalore with no “connections” to anyone in that world. But that dream is why I got a degree in Mass Communication.
Also, I had no sense of identity and was still finding my role back then. I didn’t have the focus or a clear sense of self to pursue independent filmmaking. I didn’t know what to film or what I was interested in or how to hone this craft. Over time, it’s gotten clear to me what I want to do - clear enough to get back into it.
I didn’t realise this but I’ve already been making films all these years (for my vlogs initially and now with the promotional posts for my journeys) but this time I’d like to focus on the craft itself.
There’s a lot of courses out there about how to film but there’s very little about what to film, or how to identify what you want to film.
I went to Ladakh recently and it was so pretty that I wanted to film all the landscapes, but what meaning would they hold? They’re beautiful to look at but that’s about it. I don’t want to romanticise places anymore.
In all the promotional content I’ve filmed for my journeys, I’ve barely touched the surface with the actual cultures and communities that I’ve experienced in these places. I don’t show what these communities and these places do to me. I want to start capturing all of that. It's going be a challenge.
You know, I've had a history of picking ideas and dropping them, but those were all ideas born in my late teens and early twenties. There was a lack of focus. I never questioned myself when these ideas came up. Do I really like running a cafe in the mountains or do I like the idea of running a cafe in the mountains? Is this really my passion or do I want to do this because it looks cool?
Now, I have the patience because of the way that the curated journeys on MapMyStories have evolved. While they're doing good now, the first and second years were a struggle. That made me realise that success doesn’t come instantly, being patient and gaining experience is what really matters, so maybe I'll just dive into this and not care about the outcome.
I think the kind of stories you want to tell with your filmmaking will quickly become activism.
I hope so but also I don't want it to be too loaded and in-your-face. I just want to capture everyday realities which may or may not include the wins and the struggles. Take the dam struggle in Dibang, for example. It’s their reality but it’s not their only reality.
So, I do want to subtly bring in some form of activism without having to tell or preach. There's enough preachers in the world. There's enough people shouting things on the internet and all that does is leave everyone fatigued.
If there's one thing you'd like to promote, or spread the word about right now, what would it be?
I feel like people need to start redefining what wealth and success means to them.
I’m not an expert on happiness but I would recommend that people just start questioning, redefining what things mean to them so that they can get some flexibility to design a life the way they want. I think that is my big message.
Apart from this, obviously something I believe in, as I’ve said already, is the power of nature and community on our mental and physical wellbeing.
I think we need to find and create those kinds of spaces and bonds where we live. We don’t have walkable spaces or breathable air. Stepping out of our homes is a nightmare. I would urge everyone to expect more from our legislators and push them, whoever and however they can, to create more green spaces.