In the MY STORY section, we present some of the most compelling and pertinent stories and experiences shared with us by our readers. Do you have something to share? Write to us: contact@thebetterindia.com with "MY STORY" in the subject line.
24-year-old Saurabh Rane finished a 10 km run in Mumbai in 57 mins. This was while he was taking medicines for extensively drug-resistant Tuberculosis – a condition that made his body resistant to about eight of 13 drugs meant to treat TB. I used to work from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at the hospital during my internship at DY Patil Medical College, in the Department of Physiotherapy. This was followed by observership at a clinic in the evening and another one at night. I was giving my best and working over-time in hospitals, clinics and libraries, hoping to stand out and achieve my goals. Amidst all this, I ensured that I was taking care of my health as well. I used to spend half of my lunch break in the gym nearby, for a quick workout session. I weighed 66 kg, had 15% body fat, and maintained my health well. But due to exposure in certain wards, I fell sick and was later diagnosed with Tuberculosis. After losing 16 kg in less than a month, fighting fever and cough, and reaching a point where half my lung had restricted entry of air, I resumed working in two months. But I had a relapse after six months due to wrong diagnosis and treatment. This time, the other half of my lung was compromised. I was diagnosed as a border-line XDR TB patient. XDR stands for extensively drug-resistant, which meant that my body could respond to only four drugs. With many medical complications, my condition involved 24 months of extensive treatment. I was taking 20 tablets every day and had to go through six months of daily injections.
There were multiple occasions when I felt like ending it all, but I had immense support from my family, friends and doctors who gave me the courage to fight.
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Left to right - Before diagnosis, after diagnosis and during treatment, post treatment completion[/caption]
I used to wonder about people who do not have a similar support system or inspiration to fight this dreadful condition. And this was when I decided to do things that seemed impossible to others, to encourage and motivate others living like me. It started with my best friend Neha telling me to participate in a 10km run with her. It seemed impossible in the beginning. But with proper training and determination, I knew I would be able to do it. Periodization, rest and diet, with no hindrance in medication, was the key to pulling it off. I used a combination of strength training with cardio, and trained for over 40 days, with consecutive rest for a few days to avoid aggravating my condition.
I finally ran the race on January 3, 2016, in Mumbai, while I was on active medication. I finished it in 57 minutes, with no medical assistance required at any point.
All the pain had vanished when I reached the finish line. I simply stretched out and walked with the others who had finished before and with me. I was one of them and I felt normal. It was priceless to achieve something that I once considered impossible. Just before I began the training, I had recovered from partial blindness, caused as a side effect of heavy medication. There were several other complications that I had to face in the past years, but now I know that they only made me stronger.
I continued training and could finish the 10 km race in 45 minutes on February 20. I will attempt a difficult high altitude trek in August to inspire more and more people to fight this disease.
- Saurabh Rane
One of the key interventions under the project is ‘Axshya Samvad’ in which trained community volunteers (called Axshya Mitras) go door to door creating awareness about TB and simultaneously screening people for symptoms of TB and referring them for diagnosis and treatment to the nearest public health facility. For those who are unable to go for diagnosis, the project facilitates collection of sputum from their residence which is transported to the diagnostic centre for testing, and the report is communicated to the client.
Project Axshya works innovatively with nearly 1,000 local NGOs and CBOs (community-based organisations) and nearly 15,000 Axshya Mitras. Since 2013, Axshya has reached nearly 34 million people and facilitated identification and testing of over 7, 00,000 with symptoms of TB – resulting in the diagnosis of over 58,000 TB patients who have been initiated on treatment. During this period, the Axshya Mitras collected and transported over 1,70,000 sputum samples for testing – travelling several kilometres in difficult terrain on foot, bicycle, motorbike, public transport and even boats.
The project is also working closely with Rural Healthcare Providers (RHCPs) who serve as the first point of contact for the majority of the rural population. The project trains them to identify symptoms of TB among their clients and refer them for diagnosis to the nearest public health facility. They are also trained as DOT (directly observed treatment) to supervise the treatment, which is provided free of cost by the government. Nearly 30,000 RHCPs have been trained by the project and are engaged in TB control efforts.
- Sachi Satapathy
We may not be able to help find a miracle cure for cancer or any other disease that leads to hair loss in children, but we can put a smile on their faces. We can lessen their fear of going to school and we can make them happy. This is the thought with which we started Hair for Happiness.
Hair for Happiness is a hair donation initiative through which we encourage people to donate their hair. We then send the collection to Little Princess Trust in the UK, which provides free wigs to children suffering from cancer across the UK and Ireland. People can donate at one of our donation drives or privately, using our “Kits to Cut”. In these kits we mail donors a Ziploc bag containing a certificate, a sheet of instructions, a few rubber bands, and clips.
We have conducted donation drives in apartment communities, schools, and hair salons. We have partnered with two salons – Fringes in Koramangala (Bengaluru) and All About U salon (Mumbai) that offer discounts to all Hair for Happiness donors. We are also happy to be part of the corporate social responsibility initiatives of two companies – Akamai Technologies (Salarpuria soft zone) and Oracle. They have invited us to conduct donation drives at their offices in Bengaluru. We now have chapters in Mumbai and Hyderabad as well.
As Rousseau argued, people are born good, instinctively concerned about the well-being of others. Our success proves this. Everyone who hears about us and our cause wants to help in some way or other. If they can’t donate hair, they help by volunteering, by offering discounts, by providing food at donation drives, etc. Our parents have donated their time and have pledged their support towards the cost of mailing the hair to Little Princess Trust.
People often ask why we are not working with an Indian NGO. We wanted to, but everyone we approached required individual donations to be a minimum of 15 inches, and it had to be non-coloured and non-treated hair. These requirements ruled out almost all our donors. Today, teenagers to adults, almost everyone has colour treated or salon treated hair. Also, most of our donors can donate at most 8-9 inches of hair. So we came to the conclusion that we would rather make wigs for many children than make fewer wigs with longer hair.
There are children struggling to appreciate themselves and to love what they see in the mirror, because their disease is taking away what they think makes them beautiful. If giving them some of our hair helps them rebuild the self-esteem that their illness is taking away, why wouldn’t we?
- Niharika Jadeja
Ishira visiting a group of small holder farmers practicing terrace cultivation in Thakurdwara village in Pachhad tehsil. Image courtesy: Crop-Connect[/caption]
“At one point we had so many varieties of rice that they would cook a particular type of rice depending on the fish/vegetable that was supposed to be served with it. First three years we spent visiting farmers, consulting, learning and unlearning. Through our own journey, we witnessed how disconnected the urban population had become with its food. We realized that consumers need to build an awareness of the food on their plates. It’s not just about awareness, but also about appreciating what we get”.
Ishira has worked for the International Finance Corporation on projects dealing with sustainable supply chains in the agricultural sector among others. She has also worked with the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).
Puneet with a group of farmers in Dirang, Arunachal Pradesh after a week of kiwi fruit harvesting and packing. Image courtesy: Crop-Connect[/caption]
The sugar control box. Image courtesy: Crop-Connect[/caption]
Vishalakshi Padmanabhan is a Chartered Accountant by qualification and a farmer by passion. She started “
Kaulige foods workshop. Image courtesy: Kaulige Foods[/caption]
“Part of what I am trying to do at the farmer end is helping them in holding on to millets, by procuring seeds, educating farmers about the benefits of growing millets and helping them in processing millets. We also try and encourage collaborative efforts between several small farms. We collect the yield from these farms and find suitable markets.” A large part of Arun’s work is conducting workshops in corporate offices and apartment complexes. These workshops demonstrate using millets in simple everyday recipes, as well as show the participants what millet seeds and the final products look like.
Bees Pollinate Coffee Flowers- Image Courtesy: Black Baza Coffee[/caption]
By establishing farm connections through her venture, she encourages small and medium coffee farmers to follow conservation-friendly practices of growing coffee. The venture monitors not just coffee sales, but also the impact of these farming practices on biodiversity. While researching for her Ph.D., wherein she was looking into “incentive based conservation models”, Arshiya realized that setting up a social enterprise and giving better market access could be one of the ways to help farmers follow shade farming of coffee. This would, in turn, make them commit to planting more trees, conserving natural water bodies, and factoring in biodiversity while growing great coffee.
Image Courtesy: Balck Baza Coffee[/caption]
Consumers are also able to trace their cups back to the source. Through their Facebook page and blog posts, Black Baza Coffee gives its followers a sneak peak of lush green coffee farms, related processes, and some interesting coffee tips.
Towards the end of her Ted Talk “
I was still not very sure about the proceedings, but the very next morning I received a call from Mumbai Naari Kalyan office. They told me that the local authorities had been alerted and were told to rescue the lady and admit her in the Civil Hospital. But the authorities were unable to trace her for five days. This was when people at the Mumbai office took things in their own hands, came down to Satara, and found her within two hours. The lady has now been admitted to the Pune Mental Hospital, after gaining the required court orders.
I have no words to thank the Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development, Maneka Gandhi and her very efficient and co-operative team, which left no stone unturned to rescue the woman and help her with medical care. If you know someone who needs help in a similar way, you can send an email to the above mentioned address. Now I know that the system works, but we need to work with the system too.
I would like to extend my gratitude towards Ms. Neelam Bharadwaj (Executive director, Ministry of Child and Women Welfare), Mr. Kamble (Mahila Kalyan Vibhag, Mumbai) and Ms. Sunita Jagtap (Ministry of Child and Women Welfare, Satara.)
I was rejected after clearing the aptitude exam in one of my interviews. The reason they stated was – “A technical person needs speech”. I wondered – don’t my analytical, reasoning and logical abilities count at all? Can a speech problem overpower all other abilities in a person? Wasn't my 18 years long education meaningful?
It was hard to come out of that shock because I couldn’t help but think that this would be hiring trend in the entire industry. Soon after that, when another company was going to visit for campus placement, I had to muster all my confidence yet again. I forced myself to believe that this time, their way of dealing with talent would be different.
And I was right. I was able to crack all the rounds including HR, and finally made my way to the Mysore Infosys campus. The experience of working in this industry has been wonderful. The support and encouragement from my team is amazing.
Six years passed between the time I passed school and got placed. And all the while I was only wondering whether I will ever be able to earn a living and utilize my skills to pursue my passion. Today, I am surviving in this competitive profession; sharing my ideas; contributing my thoughts – and speech has never been a hindrance. My fingers also move slower than that of others because of cerebral palsy, but that too has never come in the way of my performance.
I deeply believe that my journey can encourage many differently-abled people to invest time in acquiring skills rather than thinking too much about people who can’t encourage them. Remember, when you pave the path that you want to lead, passion always finds a way.
- Bharat HG
I truly wish the world would be devoid of soldiers, because I wish we didn't need them and the world was always at peace. I played a soldier in a film for art, fame and money. There is nothing selfless about it. But while playing one, the emotions I went though had nothing to do with hating another country or loving my own.
I played a young Pakistani Major. While playing the role and getting into the head of the character, I did not once feel pro-Pakistani or anti-Indian. Neither did I feel disconnected with the role of a Pakistani soldier just because I am an Indian in reality.
My experience taught me so much about the state of mind of a military man. I believe his emotions aren’t political but rather, are purely human. I don’t think any soldier wants to be at war. He does it out of duty, out of a debt towards his motherland.
As firm, dedicated and fiercely trained as our soldiers are, do we civilians ever wonder what is going on in their hearts and minds? I’ll tell you what was going through my mind when I was a soldier - not as a Pakistani soldier, not as an Indian playing a Pakistani, and not as an actor playing a soldier. Just, as a soldier. I was often sad, thinking of what the mother, father, spouse or child of such a solider would be going through at home? I confess I was scared many times. The terrain was dangerous, the temperatures almost zero, the commute to the location was terrifying, the oxygen levels low, and the blizzards and fog mind-numbing. I often felt like my life was coming to an end.
I felt a massive surge of love towards my land but an almost equal disconnect with the political and other masterminds who orchestrate war-like situations. For what? There isn’t a single country in this world that has managed to utilize its own land to the maximum - what’s the purpose of extending boundaries further? A dozen other such thoughts kept running across my mind.
My gurus and guides teach me that every morning upon waking, I should thank God for another day of my life. What then must go through the mind of a soldier who wakes up only to get killed or kill another? There were so many things I could not stop thinking about.
But my experience was over in two weeks. Adequate measures were in place to protect us. But what about the soldiers who live through actual war and ten times worse, in all kinds of extremes, for indefinitely longer, not for money, not for fame and not to hone the art of war? Who looks after them?
From Goa, we went to Kanyakumari via the Western Ghats. It was on our way back to Mumbai that we met our first and only accident. Bhishma was riding the bike and he wanted to take a sharp turn at 70km/hr. Two cars suddenly came from the front, blocking the road. We survived and managed to reach Mumbai. After this first adventure, we decided to ride to Delhi, covering Gujarat and Rajasthan on the way.
Our daily budget was about Rs.1,000 for two people including the cost of fuel, stay, food, etc. I had been working full-time during the journey for a multinational software company as a software testing engineer. We used to ride from 5am to 11am. Then I would work till 5 pm from wherever we might have reached, while Bhishma would start reading his books.
We spent a month in Gujarat and a month in Rajasthan. By the time we reached Delhi, Bhishma came up with the idea that we should extend the road trip to Leh. It is the most beautiful place I have seen so far and can go there as many times as possible. Bhishma decided to end the trip after Leh and I bought a second hand bike because I wanted to see everything possible.
Two months later, when I reached Dhanbad via Punjab, Haryana, UP, MP, Bihar, and Jharkhand, I got a call from Bhishma. He had taken up a job but his mind was somewhere else and he wanted to start the journey again. I was on the other side of India and we decided to start from Mumbai. So I left my bike at a friend’s place in Dhanbad and took a train. We left Mumbai on Bhishma's bike – this time crossing Maharashtra and the east coast to reach Dhanabad and continue towards Bhutan and northeast India via West Bengal. We were joined by another college friend, Mrigank.
Meanwhile, I contacted a friend to develop an app named TripMapic, with the aim of bringing back the old habit of sending postcards to friends and loved ones from the locations we are exploring. The app can be downloaded 
I met Mr. HK Dharmadarshi in Mizoram. He works in Aizawl and is a traveller too. One day he called me over and asked me to narrate my story in front of 200 people who were waiting to hear it. One of them asked how I get the money to travel so much. My answer was the same – I am just running as far as my luck will take me.
I then visited Manipur and Mizoram. As a traveller on a bike I was welcomed by every family in all these places. I was in Imphal when the earthquake struck and it was followed by the cyclonic rains.
After reaching Mechuka village, I started getting home sick and decided to return. After reaching Nagpur, I came to know that all routes from Madhya Pradesh were blocked because of the floods. So I changed my route again and went to Mumbai instead of my hometown, Haridwar.
I will work on my travel app and after that, I will travel to Europe soon. I want to see the world before I am 30 and I have only three years left now. You can read the full story 
It was a different story back at school after the summer. I felt embarrassed to wash the pads and dry them out in the sun, lest my roommates make fun of me. They were grossed out by cloth pads because the blood had to be washed off. They continually complained about water shortage and suggested that I wasn’t concerned enough about our environment. These remarks really affected me, and I went back to using the disposable pads. But I made sure that I was on track at the end of the four-month-long term.
This experience made me realise that many women all over the world live with the constant fear of people judging them for their basic biological needs – so much so that there are over 3,000 euphemisms for the word menstruation. Women live their lives hiding from their own bodies.
The experience has broadened my mind. I want to convince other girls and women to switch to a more ecological and sustainable way of using sanitary napkins. I want to teach people to sew their own cloth pads.
These pads can easily be made at home. Some cotton cloth, a needle and some thread are all that you require. Draw the template of a pad that fits you well and use it to cut a piece of cloth. The backing of the pad can be cut out of Velcro, but the same cotton piece can also be used if Velcro is not available. Using another material, preferably towelling, make a strip to soak the blood. The width and the length of the towelling material may vary, depending on the flow. It is stitched onto the front cotton piece. Zigzag stitching helps keep the inner soaking layer from moving. The back and front are stitched together and two snap fasteners are sewed. All the stitching is done on the wrong side of the cloth. Pre-wash and the pad is ready to use.
The beauty of the cloth pad lies in its versatility. It allows room for experimentation, so one can choose whichever size is required. Depending on one’s flow, the soaking towel's length can be increased or decreased. Maintenance of the pads isn’t a problem. A single pad takes no longer than ten minutes to soak in water and ten to wash.
Knowledge about cloth pads is not something novel. My grandmother had it at her fingertips, and her grandmother before her. So why not us? We need to embrace this idea and spread it to all corners of the world. We need to see that every girl and every woman benefits from it.
The suspension bridge over the Dawki River on NH-40 was constructed way back in 1932 and it is one of the busiest bilateral trade routes between India and Bangladesh. This route is the main trade gate for coal, limestone, boulders, oranges, pineapples, tomato, vegetables, maize, rice etc.
Dawki isn’t just a loved destination for travellers from the two neighbouring nations but from all across the world as well. It is located around 95 km away from the state capital Shillong. Travellers can hire a taxi for Rs. 2,000 to 2,200. It’s a reasonable package and if you add up to Rs. 500 more, you would get an opportunity to visit Asia’s cleanest village, Mawlynnong in the East Khasi Hills. The town of Tamabil is the nearest settlement in Bangladesh and it is located about 1.5 km from Dawki.
Tourists are mesmerised by the water and pelagic fish species visible from the boat. This also important angling site for the local Khasi inhabitants and tourists as well. Angling is a fishing method and species like catfish, golden carps and silver carps are available in abundance in the river. The activity of boating with angling is attracting a large number of Indo-Bangladesh tourists as well as a significant bunch of overseas travellers. Fishing is an important source of occupation for the native communities.
Umngot River is also known for the annual boat race in the month of March-April. Boating is a significant occupation for the native Khasi people. They earn around Rs. 300-500 per trip. This is how tourists can explore the region without harming the ecosystem. Fuel based motor boats are banned.
The matrilineal society in this Khasi dominant region is extracting natural capital value in a gender inclusive economy where the women are the driving wheel of socio-economic empowerment. They are self-reliant and have adopted farming, fisheries, mining and tourism as a part of generating employment. Dawki has developed banking, postal, and communication centres apart from the basic market for essential day-to-day commodities. These women sell their farm products, particularly juicy oranges and vegetables. Khasi women drive sustainable business skills and they have set up rural business centres in their panchayat where they sell their farm products as well as handicrafts.
Two distinct cultural communities reside alongside the International Radcliffe Line. They speak different languages. But the placid, pristine and pleasant Dawki River welcomes all to adore the beauty and enjoy the calm.
- Kumar Deepak
Why India? Because India is hard. I came to Jaipur in 2011 for an international internship with AIESEC, a student-led global organization. And I chose this country because India to me, the second daughter of a middle class family in democratic Romania, was far more different, difficult and incredible.
Additionally, India is a hub of social innovations and it is here where I learned what I want to do with my life – that I want to develop myself as a social entrepreneur. I got inspired by jugaad – which I define as the use of limited resources to create intelligent solutions for urgent problems.
In the villages of Uttar Pradesh where artisans were working on wool and silk carpets[/caption]
Two years later in Assam, I collaborated with a local ophthalmologist to obtain an investment of Rs. 70 lakh for his eye care company. We created the business plan and won national recognition for a hub and spoke model of eye clinics in the villages around Jorhat. We also offered cataract surgery services at prices three times less than the market price.
I came to Bengaluru in 2014. It was time for me to take an operational role in a very difficult sector: waste management in Telangana. As a Frontier Market Scout, I joined a social enterprise with the mission to transform waste into organic fertilizer for farmers to revive their soil condition. It was one of the most challenging experiences in India thus far. My role was to improve operations and bring in operational standards that would increase efficiency. I sat on landfills with young women who start their day at 6 am to collect recyclable materials. They had been in debt for years after taking informal loans from scrap dealers for their children’s education.
One thing I noticed is that many of them are parents who aspire for a better future for their children. Most of them aspire to send their children to a low-cost English-medium school. This was when I decided to start working in the field of education.
Dinesh is using number grids to understand the relationship between numbers[/caption]
The world is facing a global learning crisis. Four in 10 children in developing countries fail to learn the basics by the time they finish four years in school (UNESCO, 2012). We have to stop talking about how many teachers or schools we need and start talking about how much we need children to learn, and how we can enable teachers to help children learn in limited resource settings.
A few months into my time in India, a chance encounter with my manager’s cousin–Anil Bishnoi, who just happened to be an Android developer – planted the seeds for the partnership that would eventually become vChalk.
In 2014, inspired by our research of a proven solution at scale, we decided to take the first step towards our venture in the field of education. We at vChalk are trying to solve one of the most urgent problems in education – children are in school but not learning. It is a journey towards a sustainable model that can enable teachers to help one million children in schools catch up on basic English and Math skills for learning. The model has already gained recognition from NASSCOM, Global Social Venture Competition and others. You can follow vChalk’s story on 
Travel is liberating, no doubt. But there are times when you pick a new destination to rebel. Trust strangers, scream in the mountains, jump in the ocean, pay attention to the unknown and live like a nomad. There is a charm in being rebellious about your existence and living deeply. When people ask me how I fund my travel, I always say that the logic is simple – I invest in experiences and not on things. It is much more comforting for me.
Once I hit the 30ish mark, the social pressure of conforming seemed to kill my vibe. I was expected to be perfect at home, job, vacations, and even on Instagram – but once tI started flirting with the idea of imperfections, everything started falling into place. I started sharing my travel stories on my blog and the response was tremendous. I also wanted to explore human connections with the people I meet on the way, and wanted and narrate their life stories through a photo journal. This was the reason why I travelled to North Himachal and foothills of the Himalayan range and came up with a series called Portraits From Himalayas.
It deals with everything ‘non-touristy’ like exploring home-stays’, trekking for hours to capture the perfect sunset, camping, meeting locals and knowing their stories and dreams. The uncertainty of a new world is thrilling and the most exciting for me and the foothills of Himalayas turned out to be the perfect canvas for me to wander and find home in the mountains. Have a look:
Rekha works in one of the lodges in Khajiar. She was married at the age of 13 and had a daughter when she was 15. Her daughter is expecting her first child this monsoon and Rekha cannot hold her excitement. I asked her if she was unhappy about being married so early and she said, “In our community, your parents make sure that you are sent to your ‘real house’ once you are 12. I lost my husband when I was 20 and since then it has been me and my two daughters. We are like pahadi sisters, always laughing and loving each other. Life is not always perfect though. There were times when I could feed only one of my children, but the fact that I work and support my family makes me feel very strong.”
Tayyab has seen life very differently. We spoke for long about Mumbai and how he always wanted to leave everything behind and run to the city like in the movies, but the mountains never let him. He has never been anywhere except the village he grew up in. I asked him if he regrets this and he replied, “I watch the world through the eyes of the tourists who visit Himalayas. The only thing I do not like about them is that they are so restless. They are always looking for network for their phones. I am happy in the mountains. There is so much peace.”
Kaku’s Cottage is the name of her home-stay and she must be around 65 years old. Kaku provides tourists with food, basic accommodation and a bucket of steaming hot water for a bath every day. She lost her son who was in the Gorkha Regiment in the Indian Army. She had no means of earning after his death, so she started this home-stay for her survival. Kaku borrows happiness from the tourists who stay with her, but winters are lonely and scary, she says.
Devi is a village midwife. Surprisingly, there are almost negligible medical facilities around North Himachal and foothills of Himalayas. Devi has helped in the deliveries of a countless number of kids in the last 30 years. “In our village, all the women of the family are present in the room during child birth. My hands are very stable and they trust me with the delivery. Most of the villagers seem happier when it’s a boy, but for me all children are equal. I take care of them with the same love.”
If you have been to the mountains, you know that every food stall has Maggie. Sona works with her father and they serve only Maggie and tea. She is amazed at how tourists relish this dish. It was surprising to watch her mix local herbs and spices to cook this ‘two-minute urban addiction’ with a twist. I told her that she looks like Kareena Kapoor in Jab We Met, but she had no clue about who she was. That’s when it struck me that we belong to two different worlds. Sona represents a generation that is capable of so much more. I wish the youth in the region had more opportunities of occupation and growth.
- Pooja Kochar
For decades, Melghat in Maharashtra has always been portrayed before the rest of India as a malnourishment prone and malnutrition affected area deep inside the jungles of the Satpura range. But this Shrushti Bandha rakhi has demonstrated and in fact symbolizes the capability, potential and skills of these adivasis.
“Contrary to the popular perception of being a pleading class, these tribals are people who preserve the environment, humanity and traditions,” says Sunil Deshpande, founder secretary of the NGO 
This artisans’ cooperative was started in 1998 with just 15 tribals. Now, the society works with 450 people and the turnover has increased manifold as the production increases. What Venu Shilpi Industrial Cooperative Society is trying to do is basically link ‘man’, ‘method’ and ‘materials’ for a respectable livelihood. Biomaterials are one of the critical yet sustainable sources of energy.
“These kinds of rakhis are the best examples as to how a natural renewable resource such as bamboo can be best utilized to come up with a livelihood plan. Every single hand-made rakhi bought by city dwellers will contribute to the sustenance of a tribal forest dweller,” says Sandeep Theng of the 
Around the same time, his uncle brought some paddy seeds that Khan decided he wanted to try out too. But, since his uncle declined his request for the same, Khan had to make other arrangements to get the paddy seeds. Somehow, he managed to get exactly 40 seeds, which he planted in his farm. The yield from just 40 seeds filled two bags. Enthused by a successful harvest, he continued to use this particular paddy seed. But, surprisingly, neither Khan nor the villagers were aware of the name or variety of the paddy. An official of the Karnataka Seed Corporation recognised this paddy and ascertained that it was of the Ratna Choodi variety. This seed used to be grown in parts of old Mysore and was on the verge of disappearance.
This prompted Khan to dedicating the rest of his life to discovering and growing indigenous varieties of paddy so he could store them for future use. Thereafter, Khan switched over completely to organic farming with the support of Sahaja Samruddhi Savayava Krishikar Balaga (Natural Organic Farmers Association).
With support from SSSKB, Khan, in the year 2004, managed to grow and store eight different varieties of paddy seeds. By the year 2010, he had 150 varieties of paddy seeds and by 2011, he had 267 varieties of paddy. Today, he has the second largest collection of indigenous varieties of paddy seeds in India.
Khan's storehouse has paddy seeds from almost all states of the country and also some more from Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia. He has meticulously documented all the varieties of paddy, as well as the various techniques of cultivation, crop protection, preservation, and yield details, etc. Khan has four large rooms in his house devoted to preserving the assortment of paddy seeds with documentation details. Any farmer interested in planting them can approach Khan, who gives away the seeds at nominal rates and guides the farmers in growing techniques.
Apart from paddy, Khan grows 120 varieties of mangoes on his farm of 20 acres – some varieties are almost 250 years old. Some smell like mangoes yet taste like mosambi or bananas and even apples, and some mangoes even smell like pepper and camphor! He also grows a variety called the sugarless mango, which smells like mango but the pulp does not contain any sugar. The mangoes from his farm are exported to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Denmark, Dubai, etc.
He also grows wheat, sugarcane and a large variety of fruits like sapota, seetaphal, pomegranate, black jamun, as well as vegetables like bhindi, kundru, tomato, karela, brinjals, and sweet potatoes.
Khan was honoured with the 'Krishi Pandit' award in 2008, and in 2010 the Government of Karnataka bestowed him with the 'Krishi Jeeva Viavidya' honour.
He is a model farmer who has managed to dissuade many rural youngsters from migrating to the cities and encouraged them to take up agriculture as an honourable profession.
Shri Syed Ghani Khan can be contacted on this email address: 
They ran away and got married, only to come back when they had a son. "She was my partner from the day I agreed to marry her. I had decided to stand by her no matter what. Life was good. I started a CCTV business – travelled to China so many times that I had to renew my passport multiple times. We went from living in shambles to buying a home that had more TVs than there were family members," he said.
When his wife's mother fell ill and no one in the family was ready to take responsibility fearing that she would become a financial burden on them, Mukesh brought her in. She stays with the family till date.
Throughout this exchange, Mukesh kept a careful eye on the road and also ensured that I had locked the car door properly. "Delhi isn't safe – no precaution is enough," he said. He dropped me off at the doorstep of my guest house and insisted on waiting till I had gone inside. He also gave me a call once I was in. "I felt that the caretakers are drunk. You're a single lady and this may not be the best place – please feel free to call me if you sense any hint of trouble. I stay nearby," he said.
- Alankrita Khera