Prior to being named Global Editorial Director, Thani was Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast Traveller India, a role she held since the launch of Condé Nast Traveller India in 2010. Prior to this, she worked as Features Editor at Vogue India. She was also the Lifestyle Editor for Time Out Mumbai and the Advertising Manager for L'Officiel and Seventeen Magazine in India. Thani graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. She received the Robert C Laing Award for Creative Writing, and a prestigious Brackenridge Fellowship from the University Honors College.
In a word, connection. Since the pandemic, there has been a remarkable shift in the way people see travel. Instead of just crossing countries or sights off a list to brag about, travelers have become much more discerning and thoughtful about where they go, when, and why. They want to use their travel as a way to spend quality time with people they love and maintain the relationships most precious to them. They want to immerse themselves in authentic experiences that allow them to connect with local communities and impact them in a positive way. And they want to travel to connect with themselves, to ground themselves, to nurture and restore their bodies, minds and spirits. We are living in an age of information and technology, so it's no wonder that people are seeking deeper meanings and connections. Travel has become the most tangible way of finding them.
That travel is therapy. That the curiosity and urge to explore the world is innate to the human condition--in fact, it's what reinforces and reminds us of our humanity.
I genuinely believe that travelers make better human beings. It's people who have encountered the sheer beauty and wonder of the world who will feel inclined to protect and preserve it. It's people who have broken bread with or been shown kindness by complete strangers in a foreign place who know that despite our differences, we are all the same. To travel the world is to believe that more people are good and kind than evil. You approach life differently as a result. You're more empathetic. You know there's more to a story than the news. You know to go beyond the cliches and stereotypes and tropes. I see what we do as a way of counteracting--or at least balancing--the narratives we are being fed by so many. It drives me every single day.
It'll probably be very unpopular because it's sort of the opposite of manifestation. I trust in the universe. I believe in staying open minded to things that come my way--often because they're greater opportunities than I could have ever dreamed of myself. I believe you have to do your very best, and give it your all, but try not to be attached to the outcome. It's the principle of Dharma and it's incredibly powerful. Success and failure are both temporary and fleeting, so I try not to take either too seriously.
My mother is the strongest, most independent and resourceful woman I know. She simply does what she feels needs to be done, no fuss, no drama, no acknowledgment or recognition or thanks required. She doesn't hold a grudge. She's confident of her place in the world. She truly doesn't care what other people may think--and never has. As a girl growing up in India in the 80s and 90s, I cannot impress how unusual it was to have a mother who thought this way. I feel very grateful to have watched her live in grace and elegance all my life.
My jewellery! Every piece I wear has sentimental value for me--either it's a family heirloom or gifted by a close friend, or bought in a place I love and want to remember and hold close.
The obsession with longevity is really catching on, but what I love is how much value we are finding in ancient knowledge systems like ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine. We are seeing new, hi-tech ways of measuring their impacts and advantages. It's the best of both eastern and western ways of thinking about health and wellness and I am totally here for it.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude was the first piece of Latin American literature I read and I was blown away by how much I could relate to a world and a story and a character from a completely different place--it reminded me so much of Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, one of our greatest Indian novels. It opened me up to authors from everywhere. Reading is like traveling while lying on the couch.
