The first seed of Bass & Bennett was planted more than twenty five years ago, on a trip to India.
At the time, I was working in the software industry for a global company and had already spent years traveling internationally for work. I had traveled elsewhere in Asia, but nothing prepared me for India. The scale, the noise, the color, the pace, the smells, the food, the barely controlled chaos —it felt less like visiting another country and more like landing on a different planet.
Back in Pittsburgh, I found it almost impossible to explain what I had experienced. I could describe it, I could show photos, I could try to describe it, but I could tell that people still couldn't image what it was like to be there. More than that, after a while, they stopped trying (and frankly tuned me out every time I brought it up). For me, though, the experience had been transformative. I wanted someone else in my world to see it firsthand—so they could understand what I'd experienced and share in the awe.
So I decided to take my girlfriend at the time to India.
By then, I had close friends there who were well connected and generous enough to help me plan a trip that went far beyond the standard tourist route. I spent time researching where we should go and what we should do. Up to that point, most of my time in India had revolved around work, aside from the obligatory trip to the Taj Mahal. This time, I wanted to explore.
The itinerary I came up with was ambitious, to put it mildly: a long train journey to Jaisalmer, the historic walled city near the Pakistani border; time in Delhi with friends; a planned stay on a houseboat in Kashmir; and, because my girlfriend was an artist who owned a gallery in Pittsburgh, an effort to find contemporary art galleries in India as well.
We arrived in Delhi on a Saturday night after a long trip from the U.S. My friend, Neel, had arranged a hotel and a driver, and after a few hours of sleep, we were itching to get out and about ... at least, I was. I have always had a tendency—especially when traveling with someone new to a place—to underestimate the need for acclimation. I still do, if I’m being honest. I get excited and want to plunge straight in and assume that everyone else does as well (this has gotten me into trouble more than once).
The next morning, our friends took us through Old Delhi. We saw overcrowded markets jam packed with people and goods, the Red Fort, and the dense traffic and crowds that operated at a level beyond anything I had seen anywhere in the world. That same afternoon (our first full day in India), we headed to Old Delhi railway station to catch our train to Jaisalmer.
It is difficult to overstate the chaos of that station. It's hard to image what it's like being in old Delhi (a city with 20+ million people), let alone the old railway station in the heart of old Delhi itself. It was absolute chaos. Huge crowds of people were on every platform, standing, sitting, or sleeping on the ground. There were many, many platforms with old trains filled to capacity (and beyond) coming and going constantly. My friend ran back and forth trying to figure how where our train was, first placing us on one and then rushing back to pull us off and move us to another. Eventually, we settled into our compartment on a sleeper train that bore little resemblance to what an American traveler might imagine.
The train pulled out soon after we boarded and our 26 hour train ride had begun. A few minutes later a family of rats walked around our luggage on the floor and under our feet.
I laughed, not thinking too much of it myself, and then promptly climbed to the upper berth and went to sleep. My girlfriend Jill, was having a bit of a different experience (in retrospect it's hard to believe how oblivious I was ...). I woke sometime later to sounds of her cursing and arguing with someone. It turns out that the light switch for our area (that included 4 other berths in addition to ours) was in her berth. The conductor would come by, reach in and switch the light off. She would yell at him and promptly switch it back on. I looked down to see that she had piled all of our luggage around her (it had been on the floor beneath her berth and was clinging to it rocking back and forth in obvious distress. It was immediately clear that unless something changed, she was not going to make it through the trip (I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that what actually went through my head was how she was going to ruin my trip unless I did something to intervene). I felt the trip unravelling quickly!
I climbed down from my berth, without talking to her or asking her what was wrong I put all the luggage up on my berth. I sat on one end of her berth and had her lay down and put her head on my lap. I turned out the light and she quickly fell asleep. I stayed like that for 4 or 5 hours so she could get some rest and try to recover a bit. When she awoke, she was much calmer and was able to
Unlike trains in the United States, the doors were left open on many of the cars. You could freely walk around and sit or stand in the doorway and watch the landscape change hour by hour. Villages gave way to towns, then to larger cities, all with their own rhythms, their own architecture, their own colors and clothing and faces. At station stops, vendors would appear at the windows and doors with food and drink. People were curious about us, and often eager to talk (we were the only non-Indians on the train). They asked where we were from. They asked where we were going. There was an openness to those interactions that felt unfamiliar and deeply human.
By the time we arrived in Jaisalmer, we were both fully absorbed in the experience.
Jaisalmer is one of those places that feels almost unreal when you first see it. The old walled city rises above the surrounding town, its fort dating back to the twelfth century when it was a major trading center. We had booked a room in a guesthouse built into the walls of the fort, overlooking the city below. The room had brightly colored Rajasthani textiles and a carved sandstone window seat, all bathed in the golden tone that gives Jaisalmer its nickname: the Golden City.
Because it was August, and therefore not peak season in the Thar Desert, the city felt quieter than expected. After Delhi, it seemed as though we had stepped not only into another region, but into another era.
We did the things visitors to the area often do—visited forts, rode camels in the desert, ate remarkable Rajasthani food—but what stayed with me most was something else: the hospitality. People were warm in a way that felt immediate and genuine. We were invited into homes, pulled into celebrations, encouraged to participate rather than simply observe. At one point, we had dinner with a family living deep in the desert, miles from water and electricity. On another occasion, musicians tried, with limited success, to teach me how to play a traditional drum.
I also fell in love with the architectural language of the region. We spent hours wandering through salvage yards, looking at old wooden doors, carved fragments, ironwork, and utilitarian objects that felt every bit as compelling as anything you might find in a museum or gallery. They weren’t presented as art, but they had all the presence of art.
After Jaisalmer, we were supposed to fly to Kashmir and stay on a houseboat in Srinagar. But while we were in Rajasthan, unrest in the region intensified, and after hearing firsthand accounts from other travelers, we decided it was not wise to go. So I called my friend Sunil in Delhi.
Sunil is one of those people who can make the improbable happen. I have known him for over thirty years, and at this point he is more like family than a friend. Within hours, he had reinvented our itinerary. Instead of Kashmir, he arranged for us to travel to the foothills of the Himalayas, pick up a motorcycle from a stranger at a park in a small town in Punjab, ride it through the mountains for ten days, and leave it at a designated address at the end of the trip.
It sounded absurd. It also worked.
The pickup itself felt like something from another era of travel. At the appointed time, I walked to a park and waited. A man rode up on a motorcycle, introduced himself, handed me the bike and two helmets, confirmed where I was to drop it off in ten days, and walked away. He asked for no credit card, no deposit, no ID. The motorcycle was a Royal Enfield 500cc single-cylinder with a kick start and controls reversed from what I was used to. Starting it took technique. Riding it in Indian traffic required faith.
That part of the trip was a world unto itself: mountain roads, shifting weather, small villages, terrifying bus encounters, stunning views, and an ever-deepening awareness that India is not one thing. Each region felt distinct. The landscapes changed, but so did the people, the language, the food, the clothing, and the atmosphere. Crossing from one place to another often felt like crossing into a different country.
One of the most unforgettable moments was riding over the Rohtang Pass. At the time, it was the only land route from Himachal Pradesh toward Ladakh, and it was both breathtaking and dangerous—high elevation, limited paving, active landslides, and sheer drop-offs that left no room for error. Trucks and buses edged past each other on roads that seemed barely wide enough for one vehicle. At one point, a landslide blocked the return route and we had to wait for the road to be dug out before traffic could move again.
It was exhilarating, unnerving, and unforgettable.
Eventually we made our way back to Delhi, where I returned to the idea that had been part of the original trip: finding contemporary art galleries. My girlfriend owned a gallery in Pittsburgh, and I thought it would be fascinating for her to see what artists in India were doing—and perhaps even form relationships that could lead to future collaborations.
We had almost no information to go on. This was before everything was neatly searchable. What I had found online was more like a listing than a guide. My friends didn’t know much about gallery districts, so we hired a driver and started searching.
Delhi was sprawling then and is even more so now. Getting from one area to another could consume an entire day. Our first leads went nowhere, so we did what travelers used to do more often: we started asking people. Shopkeepers. Passersby. Anyone who looked like they might know.
Eventually we found a gallery.
But it wasn’t what we expected.
Instead of paintings or sculpture, the space was filled with furniture—high-end, one-of-a-kind, contemporary furniture. I remember being struck not only by the pieces themselves, but by the pricing. Even then, with only a vague understanding of what it would actually take to source, ship, and sell such items back in the U.S., I could sense that there might be an opportunity there. More importantly, something clicked for me. These objects had all the presence and individuality of art, but they also lived in people’s homes. They shaped daily life. They were functional and beautiful at the same time.
That mattered to me.
We kept going, asking for more recommendations, following one lead to the next. Eventually we found a large artist residency program where artists from around India were living, working, and collaborating. We spent hours there meeting artists, talking with the woman who ran the space, and learning about what they were making. She eventually invited us to stay for dinner, and we ended up sharing a home-cooked meal with her family.
It was one of the best days of the trip.
We had set out with no real certainty, no real roadmap, and no guarantee of success. What we found instead was not just interesting work, but the kind of openness and hospitality that had defined so much of the journey. Time and again, the most meaningful moments came not from major monuments or carefully planned excursions, but from asking questions, following curiosity, and being welcomed into people’s lives.
When I think back on that trip now, two things stand out.
The first is that what I love most about travel is not sightseeing. It is connection. The best moments are almost always unplanned: asking someone for directions, stopping for chai, watching someone make something by hand, getting drawn into conversation, being invited further in than you expected. That is where travel stops being consumption and starts becoming relationship.
The second is that after that trip, I knew I wanted more of that kind of life. Vacation travel once or twice a year no longer felt like enough. Work travel, even to interesting places, didn’t offer the same depth. I began to imagine a different possibility: a life built around seeking out beautiful, meaningful objects in the places they come from, meeting the people who make or preserve them, learning their stories, and then bringing those objects—and some part of those stories—back home.
That was the original spark.
Bass & Bennett did not begin as a business plan. It began as a feeling: that there was a richer way to move through the world, one built around curiosity, craftsmanship, human connection, and the belief that the things we bring into our homes can carry something real with them.
That trip planted the seed. Everything that came later grew from there.
