DEHRADUN, 8 Nov: Nitin Gairola, a renowned extreme world traveller who is on a quest to be the first to visit the entire ‘natural world’ of biomes & ecosystems, conducted an insightful & inspirational session on Geography, Earth Science & Travel at UNISON World School’s inaugural Youth Literature Festival – Narrativa 2025.
Narrativa 2025 was held across three days from November 6-8 and Nitin’s session was on Saturday. The inaugural edition of the festival was hailed a resounding success as it celebrated storytelling in every form – be it written, spoken, visual, and lived. Students from premier schools across Dehradun participated in it and showcased their literary & artistic talents.
During Nitin’s session, he shared fascinating stories of his travels to remote and hard to reach corners of the planet’s desolate deserts, dense forests, endless grasslands and cold tundra & polar ice regions. In the process, he also clarified many concepts related to bio-geography, paleoanthropology and various other fields of study.
During the closing address, Nitin again took the main stage and lent words of wisdom to the students in which he emphasized the power of storytelling at a personal level. As per him this helps people to answer the most difficult question of our times – ‘So, what do you do?’.
Gairola said that if he had not chosen to visit the entire natural & political world, he would be just another world traveller and would not be referred to as the ‘Most Travelled Indian’. He had to do something this dramatic to stand out and create a worthy ‘introduction’ for himself. Nitin also highlighted the need for children to not just find their purpose in life, but to also ‘stay the course’ and not give up on their dreams when the going gets tough. As per him, discipline always beats motivation and the key to success lies in being persistent and disciplined every day, even when going through a rough patch.
Nitin closed his address by saying that once someone finds their ‘white space’, they should go out and colour it brightly for the world to see. Nitin’s own white space was the world map and by visiting the entire world, he coloured the map for himself and that became the story of his life.
