Have you ever ever thought of stepping away from the frenetic tempo of city life and immersing your self within the tranquil simplicity of your ancestral heritage? Does the considered residing minimally, as your ancestors did, enchantment to you? Meet a household who’s made this imaginative and prescient their lifestyle.
At 51, former mannequin and mechanical engineer Rajesh Mate has turned to farming, guiding his household to a life on their ancestral land in Raigad. He now lives on a farm together with his spouse Smita and two daughters, Dhruvi and Diti, making farming the center of their day by day lives.
When requested why a well-off household from Mumbai’s Dadar would select Raigad, Rajesh explains, “We wished to depart behind Mumbai’s high-speed, consumer-oriented existence and reconnect with the less complicated, conventional life our ancestors led.”
The shift to Raigad has allowed the Mate household to align their instructional and eco-values by permaculture, leading to a extra linked and completely satisfied household. Discover out why they’re extra able to face challenges now, and the way transferring from a prestigious Mumbai faculty to a homeschooling setup in Raigad has led to sudden advantages for 12-year-old Diti.
‘You may’t defy nature’
The will to reconnect together with his roots took maintain of Rajesh in 2017, after attending a five-day Panchagavya course in Nashik. This course, emphasising the usage of cow milk, dung, urine, ghee (clarified butter), and curd, highlighted Ayurveda’s holistic therapeutic strategies for treating quite a few well being situations.
Rajesh’s enthusiasm for Panchagavya merchandise grew after the course, main him to strive making them on his personal. He shares that after making use of the Panchagavya merchandise, his calf and again ache from driving lengthy distances was relieved. He figured, “If these merchandise labored for me, they may work for others too.”
He additionally began utilizing a cow ghee-based serum for physique aches, fevers, ENT issues, and bruises. He says he utilized the serum to his stomach button, adhering to the idea that “the stomach button is linked to all 72 nerves of the physique,” a technique impressed by ancestral practices.
After discovering the quite a few advantages of cow-derived merchandise, Rajesh was decided to deepen his data of farming and agriculture, so he took a permaculture design course in Bengaluru.
Later, he thought, “To place my data into apply, I would like to maneuver to Raigad.” He began by farming part-time on weekends, commuting from Mumbai to Raigad on Fridays and returning on Sundays. It quickly turned clear {that a} full transfer to Raigad was the most effective path ahead.
To Rajesh, permaculture is all about effectively utilizing the sources in your speedy atmosphere. He discovered farming fundamentals from his neighbours and found that adhering to nature’s rules is significant. “You may’t defy nature,” he says, noting that nature follows its personal techniques.
He began with conventional fertilisers like cow dung and cow urine, that are rooted in historical agricultural practices. As he transitioned to permaculture, he began educating others about his strategies after they noticed his farm thriving with out pesticides. “That is how our ancestors farmed,” he explains.
He stresses that soil wants mulching to forestall publicity and evaporation, enabling microorganisms to heal the soil after pesticide injury.
From city hustle to rural tranquillity
Rajesh shares that his transfer from Mumbai to Raigad, alongside together with his household, stemmed from a want to embrace a minimalist life-style free from allopathic medicines. However how did Rajesh persuade his household to depart their life in Mumbai and relocate to Raigad? “It wasn’t a simple determination,” he confesses.
His spouse, Smita, was shortly on board, however convincing his daughters, Dhruvi and Diti, was difficult. The household agreed to maneuver to Raigad after Dhruvi accomplished her Class 12 exams at Podar School in Mumbai. In the meantime, Diti, who was in Class 5, transferred to a college that provided distant studying.
After months of cautious consideration, and as soon as everybody was snug with the choice, the household lastly realised that it was a win-win scenario for all of them and moved from their Dadar dwelling to their Raigad residence in 2022.
“Relocating to a rural space isn’t with out its difficulties. Discovering a community was a problem at first,” Rajesh admits. He mentions that there have been instances he needed to take his household to the Raigad market to discover a sign.
Through the day, Rajesh oversees his farm and manages his enterprise in central medical gasoline pipeline techniques, which includes supplying respiratory gases to ICU items in hospitals. In the meantime, Smita handles the executive facets of the enterprise.
“I personal three properties: one in Dadar, one in Kalwa, and one in Thane. At a sure level, I started to query, ‘Why am I shopping for these flats and investing in gold? If I’m spending cash merely for extra facilities, when will I ever use them?’” he confesses.
He provides that spending a big quantity on brief holidays, as many rich people do, solely to return to a metropolis with polluted air and water, doesn’t make sense to him. He argues that true well being relies on oxygen, which cash can’t purchase. He describes what is commonly referred to as “well being care” as “illness care”, believing that true well-being comes from being in tune with nature.
The day begins for the household at 5 am with a meditation session that lasts till 5.30 am. They then carry out Agnihotra — a Vedic ritual the place they gentle a copper pot full of hearth, supply ghee and rice to the solar, and chant mantras (sacred phrases). Dhruvi and Diti are likely to the birds, canine, and cats on the farm and assist with farming duties. Following the pure cycle, they fall asleep as quickly as darkness units in, round 8 pm.
Nature as classroom
Dhruvi, now 19, has accomplished programs in management in biodiversity conservation and permaculture design, following in her father’s footsteps. In the meantime, 12-year-old Diti is at present homeschooled. “Most mother and father favor typical education for his or her kids,” Rajesh acknowledges. “Nevertheless, since we’re embracing a life-style deeply linked with nature, I consider nature must be Diti’s instructor.” He hopes that in Raigad, nature will function Diti’s classroom.
“I don’t need my daughter to simply gather levels,” he says, referencing the traditional Gurukul system the place college students discovered a broad spectrum of topics by hands-on expertise. “I introduced this idea to my household, and so they have been on board,” he provides with a smile.
Rajesh proudly shares that Diti can grasp difficult asanas (train postures) and even establish colors and skim with a blindfold on. He dubs this apply “Mind Fitness center”, one thing that retains her senses alert and refined.
Right this moment, each daughters’ day by day actions vary from doing fieldwork to creating pure mud homes. When requested about how his daughters thrived with out conventional education, Rajesh defined that adapting to their new life-style was simple as soon as they dedicated to it. He notes that many individuals round him, who wished to do the identical for his or her kids, usually inquire about how he managed to steer his youngsters to embrace nature as their classroom.
Dhruvi and Diti discover themselves happier now, immersed within the firm of cows. The household’s preliminary 4 cattle have grown to 42. They not solely preserve a farm with over 25 wild vegetation — corresponding to aakur (Acrostichum aureum), spiny gourd, bharangi (Clerodendrum Serratum), air potatoes, elephant foot yam, and Indian spherical gourd — but in addition train sustainability practices in Raigad.
Their model, Gavya, presents a variety of merchandise made out of cow dung and varied vegetation, together with jewelry, ornamental gadgets, hair oils, balms, natural cures, and private care merchandise like eye and nasal drops and toothpowder.
The household’s permaculture method mirrors nature’s personal techniques. “We goal for concord amongst totally different pure components,” Dhruvi says. She factors out that areas thought of wastelands are sometimes merely misused by people. Quite than eradicating a tree that doesn’t match their farm’s wants, she adapts the encompassing land to suit it. “Permaculture presents natural options for utilising these ‘wasted’ lands.”
Their farm consists of biodynamic domes for poultry, agronets, and fishing nets for regulating temperature and defending crops. “Our system permits hen compost to show into fertiliser, making a self-sustaining ecosystem,” he provides.
Dhruvi stresses that permaculture’s ethics — earth care, folks care, and justifiable share — apply not solely to land use but in addition to on a regular basis practices.
Designed to comply with the solar’s arc, the farm makes optimum use of daylight. The land’s slopes enable for efficient rainwater harvesting by trenches.
What’s the key ritual that brings the household collectively? Rajesh says: Household time! Earlier than delivering every evening, the household comes collectively to recount their day. “Diti all the time has lots to share,” Rajesh admits. “Papa, the cow is pregnant. Papa, I performed with the cats.”
In keeping with Dhruvi, her household is extra united now, and so they can develop versatile options for his or her farm in addition to their private lives. “Transferring again to your native place isn’t possible for everybody,” she admits. But, folks can nonetheless make an affect by small actions, corresponding to taking public transport extra usually or slicing down on quick style. “In Mumbai, we made a degree of utilizing the whole lot we introduced dwelling a number of instances, together with plastic luggage,” Dhruvi remembers. She credit her household’s help as the important thing think about easing their transition.
In her view, endurance is essential for sustaining earth-work. “On daily basis on the farm brings sudden challenges,” she reveals. This actuality has led the household to stay devoted to discovering options for points corresponding to treating injured animals or fixing their vegetable backyard’s water system. “Coping with these day by day challenges has embedded endurance into our day by day lives,” Dhruvi acknowledges.
Is the household feeling remoted away from their Mumbai circle? “Completely not!” Rajesh assures. He explains that they keep well-connected with their family and friends. “We incessantly have company coming to see how we stay sustainably, together with those that need to replicate our life-style however have their very own hurdles. We gladly present them round.”
“We don’t know what the long run holds for us, all we all know is that we’ll go together with nature,” he remarks.
Edited by Pranita Bhat; All photographs courtesy Dhruvi Mate
