Hi! I am Sudhakar, an ex-Mumbaikar. I was born and brought up in Mumbai’s suburb Goregaon, but I have spent close to 2 decades of my life across various parts of the country for education and work. I graduated in Electrical Engineering from NIT Rourkela in 2008. Unlike a lot of my peers, I decided not to pursue a career in the then promising industry IT. Most of my corporate career was spent with the FMCG behemoth ITC at Bengaluru, Munger and Kolkata where I honed my leadership and managerial skills. Then following my peers, I chose to pursue a management degree at ISB in 2013-14. Post which, I worked with Housing.com, a real estate start up, where I learnt plenty about what to do and what not to do when building a business from scratch. After spending a couple of years at Housing.com, I decided to quit corporate life temporarily to pursue something that gave more meaning to my life. When I quit, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But, I was sure it wasn’t mere economic wealth that I wanted to create in the long term, which seems to be the objective of most engineering /+ MBA graduates now. I worked with Milaap.org on a fellowship programme (where my primary role was to capture and document the stories of the community, and this in turn fueled my desire to document everything I am doing with the farm) for 6 months in 2016 where I got to meet and talk to a lot of wonderful people doing impactful work for society. Also, Milaap me hi milaap hua Noushy aur mera. 🙂 I didn’t really have a eureka moment to pursue sustainable living but the more I read and spoke to people, I realized that the maximum potential for improving the quality of our lives lies in the soil and the way we grow our food. The year 2017 was spent in volunteering in Forest Conservation and Organic Farming communities in Auroville, Pondicherry. 2018 was spent in searching for land to spend the rest of our lives. The rest of our story is an open book in our blogs and social media pages. 🙂 Other than convincing other people about the pleasures of a simple lifestyle, my hobbies include listening to and playing music, which I hope to explore more during the quieter times at the farm.

Regards

Sudhakar

Vanakkam!

I’m Noushadya, born and brought up in Thanjavur, a town in Tamil Nadu famous for its temples, dancing dolls and much more. I got the taste of city life when I moved to Chennai for my under graduation. And from there I moved to Bengaluru where I completed my PG with SIMC. I worked with Milaap, an online crowdfunding platform for three years.

I’m very passionate about cooking, especially traditional Indian cuisine. I make kickass South & North Indian curries, pickles and millet idlis, which I have been told are worth dying for. Okay, that’s a little too much. 😛 At the least, they are worth being hungry a little longer. I have also been exploring baking healthy and nutritious cookies and cakes for the last couple of years. I can’t wait to cook and innovate with more and more farm fresh native ingredients. I got interested in sustainable living and lifestyle after meeting Sudhakar. We decided to volunteer together in AuroOrchard for three months. And then we moved to Tirunelveli where we are working on developing a beautiful 5 acre farm, with some cows and two dogs – Suli and Momo.

Regards,

– Noushadya