I’m Aromica Bhattacharya.
I am a traveller at heart with a book in one hand and a pen in the other…
“I taught myself how to travel right”
Travel has been my motivator for as long as I can remember. I’ve always worked, in part, to be able to travel. I taught myself how to travel right: to be a curious but conscientious traveller who pays attention to context, impact, and local realities. When I’m away from my home in Delhi, you’ll usually find me walking around a city for hours, visiting museums, and spending time with art and historic places more than with modern art galleries or attractions. I tend to bring back books and small pieces of art from the places I visit, so my home has become a kind of lived archive of the memories I cherish and lessons I’ve learnt. Over time, that personal practice has grown into a professional commitment. I went from being an avid traveller to working inside the travel and tourism sector, trying to contribute to an industry I care about by improving how it understands and manages sustainability.
“my favourite subject was Engineering Drawing because I loved the precision”
I’ve always been drawn to how structure and meaning meet. At school, my favourite subject was Engineering Drawing because I loved the precision, the satisfaction of clean lines, and the way complex shapes could be understood when approached as parts of a whole. It taught me the importance of perspective. That instinct now defines how I approach sustainability data and frameworks as something that can be made legible, navigable, and usable for everyone.
“good systems are built by people who take time with each other”
At 21, my first job was as administrative secretary to the Ambassador of Chile in India. I was thrilled to become the only Indian within the core Embassy team that assumed the responsibility of the administrative, operational and logistical coordination for the State visit of the President of Chile to India, Dr. Michelle Bachelet. By 22, I had been promoted to the position of secretary to the Ambassador of Chile in India.
I also remember fondly, the mentors who shaped me most. The Deputy Chief of Mission spent lunch hours teaching me Latin so I could deepen my understanding of Spanish as a foreign language, and that investment eventually helped me go on to pass the DELE C2. This experience was the first to teach me that good systems are built by people who take time with each other, and that’s something that I’ve carried with me.
“I feel excited at the prospect of being able to mentor”
I went on to translating documents and technical manuals from Spanish to English, and I knew instinctively I wanted a deeper connection to the language I was making my career - which led me to Masters in Spanish.
For a while I wasn’t sure how diplomacy, languages, cultural heritage, travel and sustainability would come together for me as a professional. Over time, those strands have grown into a practice I recognise: making complex systems clearer and kinder in sectors I care about.
As my work evolves, I’m increasingly drawn to spaces where global governance, tourism, and climate cross over. My ultimate career goal is to bring this mix of systems thinking, sector experience, and people‑centred practice into a global public sector role.
I feel excited at the prospect of being able to mentor in the spaces that lie within strategic vision-building, diplomacy and negotiations, program and operations management, and team leadership.
“my MPhil research on Afro‑Peruvian heritage taught me that tomorrow’s breakthroughs come with intention and respect”
My academic path took me to Critical Heritage Studies, where my MPhil research explored how a community’s voice and identity resonate through a musical instrument, the cajón. The story of the cajón is the story of its maker, the Afro-Peruvian community, who trace their collective history, culture and identity back to this humble instrument (see article about it).
I have since carried with me the realisation that the atypical conditions of which the cajón is a product, proved to be the catalysts for its invention.
That lessons underpins my work even today - that there is always a way to transform the underlying systems to tomorrow’s breakthroughs - with intention and respect.
“It was this role that saw me foray into the travel and tourism industry, and then discover sustainability - it changed the trajectory of my career completely.”
My second major stint was at the then newly-opened Trade Office of Peru in India, housed in the Peruvian embassy, where I joined to develop the operational processes. To my surprise, I was quickly given the charge of scoping India as a source market for tourists and, soon enough, to set up the Tourism Office. We sat under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru (MINCETUR), and this was my first foray into tourism as an industry - a sharp learning curve from being a conscientious tourist up until that point!
I up-skilled to understand how the industry works and began building the target market within the complex profiles of Indians tourists. Marketing strategies were successfully learned on the job, so was training the Indian travel trade. It has been one of my most fulfilling roles to date, as Peru won various awards on my watch including ‘Best Emerging Destination - International' at Lonely Planet Magazine India Awards 2018, 'Best Heritage Destination' at Travel+Leisure India's Best Awards 2018, 'Best Adventure Destination' at Travel+Leisure India's Best Awards 2019, and 'Best Heritage Destination' (Cusco, Peru) at Travel+Leisure India's Best Awards 2021.
It was this role that saw me foray into the travel and tourism industry, and then discover sustainability - it changed the trajectory of my career completely. I began finding where, within the destination’s history, culture and people, lies the most fulfilling experiences. This is where I still find myself today - in understanding impact - only from a slightly different lens within sustainability.
“I want to leave it better than I found it, whether that means people, place, or planet.”
Outside of work, I stay close to languages and music. And believe in holistic living - mind, body and soul.
I’m fluent in Spanish, speak Bengali (and am learning to read and write it properly), I studied German for three years at school (even if I barely remember a word now) and chose Portuguese as an extra credit language to learn during my Masters in Spanish.
I’m also slowly shifting from harmonium to piano as a long‑term passion project. For me, learning a language or an instrument is another way of practising the same things I value in my work: attention, pattern, discipline, and the joy of understanding something more deeply over time.
I love places, books, art, paintings and objects that carry real stories and I have little patience for corporate theatre or empty lifestyle narratives.
Ultimately, whatever I’m working on, whether that be data models, partnerships, or trips of my own, my aim is always the same. I want to leave it better than I found it, whether that means people, place, or planet.
