A Kolkata consultant turned Rishikesh café owner says peace, family ties and changing tourism reshaped her business and life.
A life built in a crowded city can be unraveled in one quiet decision, and for Amrisha Agarwal that choice reshaped her work, her family, and her future.
A 36-year-old café owner, Agarwal grew up in Kolkata in India’s West Bengal state. There, she married, had her daughter, and later built a brand consultancy together with her ex-husband. Still, she says she held onto a long-running desire to move away from the city and toward a slower rhythm.
Her break from that path began when she first visited Rishikesh. a town in northern India known for its calmer atmosphere.. In her telling. what struck her most was the feel of daily life: the cleaner. fresher air compared with Kolkata. and the way better food and cleaner water noticeably improved her health. digestion. and general well-being.
She also described a sense of personal freedom that she says was difficult to experience in a large city.. In Rishikesh. she felt less constrained by time. less worried about safety. and less self-conscious about what she wore—an ease she says she had not encountered before.. The move also became tied to a painful turning point: in 2019. Agarwal’s marriage was “not in a good place. ” and the same year her father died.
After her father’s cremation, she traveled to Rishikesh with his ashes to immerse them in the Ganges River.. Her initial plan was to return. supported by a return ticket and arrangements for travel. but she says grief and the surroundings slowed her down.. She eventually stayed longer than expected, taking nearly 15 days before she could bring herself to say goodbye.
During that period, something shifted in her decision-making.. Although her taxi was waiting to take her to the airport, she told herself she wasn’t going back.. That single reversal became the pivot from a temporary visit to a permanent relocation. and she brought her daughter and herself into a new routine in Rishikesh.
When Agarwal decided to stay, she says she didn’t have a business plan. She had not intended to work in Rishikesh because she already had a company in Kolkata. In the early months after moving, she lived off savings while adapting to life in a rented apartment.
Instead of a market strategy. her first steps were personal and practical: she began cooking more at home because she and her daughter missed flavors they could not find in the town.. Over time, that home-cooking network widened.. She and her daughter made friends in community spaces, and Agarwal says people started dropping by to eat.. When visitors asked why she didn’t make a space to sell her food, the idea became a real project.
That is how Bistro de Lavenia began, named after her daughter.. The café started in December 2020, and Agarwal says she had no prior expertise in running a food business.. She didn’t know what equipment would be needed. and the concept started small: four dishes in total—two kinds of pizza and two kinds of pasta.
Now. five years later. the menu has expanded significantly. with a blend of Asian and Indian dishes as well as international options.. The café has grown into a larger operation with eight staff members.. Agarwal says she has also brought on a friend to help design the menu and manage food operations. reflecting how her initial do-it-yourself approach evolved into a more structured business.
Her decision to build a business is also inseparable from how Rishikesh shaped her daughter’s upbringing. Agarwal moved when her daughter was about 2.5 years old, and she says that her daughter’s early childhood and much of her development have unfolded in Rishikesh.
When her daughter gets bored, Agarwal says she prefers taking her outdoors rather than using screens.. She describes regular outings to the Ganges, sand and waterfalls, along with activities such as hikes, cycling, skating, and archery.. In her view. the routine encouraged physical movement and outdoor time instead of sitting in front of a television or focusing on a phone.
Rishikesh also brought global visitors to their daily life.. Agarwal links that to her daughter’s perspective: because Rishikesh attracts people from around the world for yoga. her daughter has grown up meeting families from different backgrounds.. She recalled one moment in the café involving a family from Russia discussing carrots—her daughter initially knew carrots only as orange. then learned that yellow and purple varieties exist back home.
For Agarwal, these interactions reinforce that her daughter’s learning isn’t limited to books. Real conversations, she says, have helped her daughter understand that the world is broader than what’s taught in school.
Yet the town that first felt peaceful has not stayed the same.. Agarwal says Rishikesh has grown and changed since her arrival. with the pace of new development becoming more noticeable over time.. When she started the café. she estimates there were only about five cafés on the main street. and that after dark much of the area felt nearly empty.. Now, the atmosphere is different—she describes it as if the town has expanded “a hundred times.”
The biggest shift, she says, came after the pandemic.. As remote work became more popular, many people moved to Rishikesh, and the number of businesses increased quickly.. In her telling. the opportunity was visible. and cafés opened one after another. changing the character of the street where she built her place.
A personal measure of that change shows up in a window view.. Instead of seeing mountains. she now sees another building. which she says clashes with the environment she wanted when she arrived.. The town’s evolution has created a tension between her goals for slow living and the reality of a busier. more crowded destination.
Looking ahead, Agarwal says she is planning her next move. She doesn’t know yet where she will go, whether somewhere else within India or abroad, but she wants a place where the next building is far enough away—at least 10 kilometers—so she can return to what she calls slow living.
For a business that began with four dishes and no formal experience. the bigger story may be how economics. lifestyle and tourism can shift together.. As demand grows and new competitors appear. the café’s owner is not just responding to market change—she’s also trying to protect the kind of life that originally brought her to the Himalayas in the first place.. In Misryoum’s coverage. her story reflects how personal resilience and local economic shifts can intersect in the most everyday places: a rented apartment. a community network. and a menu that gradually learned how to grow.
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