In 2024, I read William Dalrymple’s The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. It’s a fascinating, informative book, and I was hooked from the beginning—which contains a very interesting description of the discovery of the Ajanta Caves. A British cavalry officer named Captain John Smith stumbled upon the caves while out tiger hunting in 1819, and the cultural treasure he discovered forms the basis for Dalrymple’s exploration of the wonder that was India.

I have had Ajanta (and Ellora) on my bucket list for God knows how many years, and reading so vividly about the caves spurred me on. I had to go see them. My husband had visited both Ajanta and Ellora many years ago as a child and remembered little of them, and our twelve-year-old, the LO (‘Little One’, though she is by no means little any more) of course has never been. So, in the winter break, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve 2025, we spent five days in Aurangabad.

We were booked at the Gateway Aurangabad (formerly the Taj Vivanta, which is the name by which most auto-wallahs in the city still refer to it). A nice hotel, low-rise, and with a fairly large green space at the back. The LO (who, like me, is a nature buff) spent a good bit of free time exploring the grounds with me, oohing and aahing over the trees, the flowers, and the birds. The birds, especially, were a treat.