Welcome to the latest iteration of human desperation. In India, a country currently grappling with the Herculean task of breathing through a soup of particulate matter, the middle class has discovered a brand-new way to feel intellectually superior: looking up. It’s called 'astrotourism.' Because apparently, when you’ve successfully paved over every blade of grass and replaced the horizon with a grey shroud of industrial progress, the only thing left to do is drive twelve hours into the wilderness to verify that the universe hasn't filed for divorce yet.

Let’s examine this 'boom.' This isn’t a scientific awakening. This isn’t the next generation of Aryabhatas or Galileos preparing to unlock the secrets of the cosmos. No, this is the commodification of the vacuum. For decades, the stars were free. They were the background noise of the human condition, accessible to anyone with eyes and a lack of streetlights. But in our infinite wisdom, we’ve managed to turn the night sky into a premium DLC. You want to see the Milky Way? That’ll be five thousand rupees, a three-day trek, and a specialized 'glamping' tent that costs more than a small village's annual GDP. It’s the ultimate irony: the very people who built and sustain the neon-lit, smog-choked hellscapes of Delhi and Mumbai are now the primary consumers of 'darkness.' They are fleeing the consequences of their own existence, burning even more fossil fuels in heavy SUVs to reach a place where they can pretend they haven't ruined the planet.

The tourism industry, always the vulture circling the carcass of human boredom, has pivoted with remarkable speed. They’ve realized that you don’t need to provide luxury amenities if you can just sell the absence of light. 'See the Orion Nebula!' they scream, while charging you for the 'authentic' experience of shivering in a field. It’s a brilliant grift. You sell a product that exists billions of miles away, which you didn't create, and which requires absolutely no maintenance. The stars are the perfect inventory—they don’t need dusting, they don’t go on strike, and they certainly don’t care about the vapid 'influencers' trying to capture a long-exposure shot of the Andromeda Galaxy to prove they have a soul.

On one side of this farce, we have the urbanites, draped in expensive 'outdoorsy' gear they bought at a mall, pretending to contemplate the infinite while actually checking their signal bars to see if they can post a reel. Their interest in astronomy is as deep as a puddle in a monsoon. They don't want to understand stellar evolution or the physics of a red giant; they want a backdrop. They want the aesthetic of 'wonder' without the inconvenience of actually learning anything. On the other side, we have the 'astropreneurs'—the greedy opportunists who have figured out that 'science' is just a fancy word for upcharging for a telescope rental. These people would sell you bottled 'mountain air' if they could—wait, they already do. It’s a symbiotic relationship of stupidity: the bored elite paying the opportunistic grifters for the privilege of staring at a void that is, frankly, much more interesting than they are.

Humans used to look at the stars to navigate, to plant crops, or to invent gods to justify their tribal wars. Now, we look at them because we’ve exhausted every other form of terrestrial entertainment. We’ve watched every show, bought every gadget, and insulted every stranger on the internet. The 'boom' in astrotourism is the final gasp of a species that has finally realized its own planet is a claustrophobic dumpster fire. We are looking at the exit signs, slowly realizing we aren't invited out there. The stars aren't 'beautiful' or 'inspiring'; they are indifferent. They are massive, nuclear furnaces that would incinerate us without a second thought, yet we treat them like a boutique wallpaper for our fragile egos.

Eventually, these 'dark sky reserves' will succumb to the same fate as the cities. First comes the one 'stargazing camp.' Then come the boutique hotels. Then the streetlights for 'safety' because the urbanites are afraid of the actual dark. Then the fast-food joints and the gift shops selling plastic stars made in a factory that further pollutes the air. Soon enough, the darkness will be as bright as a cricket stadium, and the 'stargazers' will have to move even further away, perhaps to the bottom of the ocean, to find something they haven't yet choked with their own presence. It’s a cycle of destruction fueled by a desperate need to feel 'connected' to something that doesn't know we exist. Enjoy the view while you can, you parasites; you’re the ones who turned the lights on in the first place.