Rashmi Pratap
30 Stades is a collection of inspirationalstories that representthe brighter side of life. We uncoverstories that impact people & society. Ourjournalists love to dig outlife-changing & inspiring stories from across Indiathat otherwise wouldremain confined to their localities. With us you can rest assured about reading well-rounded stories that not just bring a smile on your face, but also encourage you to be the change.
American Jeremy ‘Jai’ Oltmann’s walking tours introduce mystic Varanasi to the world. Jeremy Oltmann came to India in 1997 as a social worker wanting to make a difference in the lives of people.
He planned to work for a couple of years and return to the US. But 25 years later, ‘Jai’ has made Varanasi his home and is introducing India’s spiritual capital to foreigners and Indians alike through his successful walking tours. Aquatic weed water hyacinth gives rise to ecofriendly handicrafts industry in the North-East. At Bozaltoli village in Assam’s Tinsukia district, Smriti Rekha Chetia and her husband remove water hyacinth, the weed which chokes aquatic bodies, from a nearby pond between October and December every year.
The de-weeding not only helps keep the pond alive with fishes but also generates income for Smriti. She dries hyacinth stems, flattens the fibre with a machine and uses it to weave ecofriendly baskets, containers, vases, dining mats, coasters, bags and other products, which have found a global market. Mirzapur man leaves high-paying job at ILO to set up FPO; turnover crosses Rs 2 crore in two years. After losing his father to cancer, Mukesh Pandey from Sikhar village in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, had to take an education loan for higher studies.
He completed post-graduation in NGO Management and Entrepreneurship in 2010 and began working as a social worker in the arid region of Kutch, Gujarat. In 2014, he joined the International Labour Organization (ILO) as a training consultant for Gujarat and Jharkhand, where he trained rural youth in entrepreneurship and earned Rs one lakh per month. Working at the grassroots gave him a wider exposure to the challenges faced by people and he decided to give up the high-paying job to work for the farmers in his village. Also Read: Rapid Organic: Rajasthan farmer’s venture helps 12,000 organic growers find global market. IITian gives a business boost to Uttarakhand’s Pal, Bhotia & Ansari weavers. It was a chance visit to Imlikheda village in Haridwar (also Hardwar) district of picturesque Uttarakhand that brought Ashish Dhyani face to face with the impoverished weavers who were leaving their centuries-old weaving tradition to work as labourers in cities.
“My professor told me about the Pal community living in the village. After interacting with them, I realised that they had a rich culture of weaving and had been doing it for generations,” says Ashish, a B. Tech graduate from IIT Roorkee. “But they had little access to finance or understanding of products or the market which made it difficult for them to make a living from weaving despite their skill,” he says. Also Read: Peoli: NID grads’ slow fashion brand hand spins success story with natural yarns; empowers Uttarakhand women.
This Jaipur NGO has brought a SMILE to thousands of women and children. Ritika, a confident young woman who works with multinational company Genpact in Jaipur, earns well for herself and lives in her own house.
What’s unusual about that, one would ask. It’s Ritika’s story that is exceptional. Visuals of Onam: Kerala’s festival when food, flowers, boat race & dance come together in celebration of life. Onam, the harvest festival of Kerala, is synonymous with life in the coastal state and is marked by food, festivities, flowers, boat races, dances, lights, colours and rituals.
Today, it is celebrated across the world wherever people from Kerala live. The festival commemorates benevolent King Mahabali’s annual return from Patala (underworld or netherworld) during the Malayalam month of Chingam (August-September) to meet his subjects on earth. Krishna McKenzie: Auroville’s British musician-farmer with a food forest & organic café. At 19 years, Krishna McKenzie felt disconnect with life in Britain.
He had studied in the J Krishnamurti School in England which oriented him towards a life close to nature. Destiny played her hand and 30 years down the line, Krishna runs the six-acre Solitude Farm at Auroville in Pondicherry, practising natural farming and growing close to 200 local varieties of crops “I was aspiring to live close to nature… a spiritual life inspired by the teachings of spiritual gurus Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) who founded Auroville. In England, an acquaintance who had lived in Auroville told me about it and I felt drawn. A quaint village in Hooghly becomes manufacturing hub for string instruments. Thatched and tiled roofs, narrow serpentine pathways and vast stretches of fallow or irrigated land are a common sight in rural West Bengal.
But what distinguishes Dadpur from other villages is Tarapada Halder, a name now synonymous with the sitar. It has been nearly five decades since Tarapada first introduced the art of creating this stringed instrument to the neighbourhood youth, giving them a life beyond making tiles for Rs 2 per day. What began in the late 1960s as a one-man enterprise for making sitars is now a full-fledged industry. Dadpur is India’s hub for manufacturing all types of string instruments – from sitar to rubab, which is considered the progenitor of the sarod and sarangi.
Retailers, wholesalers as well as artistes source their instruments from Dadpur, where three generations of Tarapada’s family as well as others spend days and nights creating stringed masterpieces. How Bihar’s Akansha Singh is converting agri-waste to clean fuel & electricity in rural areas. For 650 families in rural areas of Bihar, switching from cow dung cakes and wood to biogas has meant an end to inhaling smoke, watery eyes and cold food besides the added benefits of improved health and hygiene.
“The biogas plant has made our lives easier. Earlier, I had to cook amid fumes that choked me. How organic farming is increasing farm incomes in India. Kakam Hang’s heart swells with pride every time he speaks about his village Molvom in Nagaland.
Thirty-year-old Hang cultivates pineapples, which is one of the best and sweetest exports of the village. His farming methods are completely organic. With around 250 houses, Molvom in Medziphema circle of Dimapur district is India’s first fully-certified bio-village. And Hang easily makes a profit of Rs 3-4 lakh per annum just from selling his pineapples, which he couldn’t even have thought of before 2012. How this Rajasthan farmer went from zero to millions with organic farming using his own manures & sprays. In 2000, when organic farming was still in its infancy in Rajasthan, Ratan Lal Daga from Jodhpur district converted his 60-acre farm to organic. He did away with chemical fertilisers and pesticides, resorting to only natural cultivation methods. In the first year, his entire crop failed because of the sudden jump from conventional to organic farming. But that did not deter Daga who today earns handsome returns of Rs80 lakh a year, thanks to organic farming. “When I started, there was little awareness about organic farming.
In the wake of the green revolution, everyone was pumping in chemicals into the land to increase production,” says Daga, now 70. Koraput Coffee: How Odisha tribals brew a global coffee brand. In the 1930s, Koraput ruler Rajbahadur Rama Chandra Deo planted some coffee seeds in the tribal-dominated district as an experiment. Almost 100 years later, those seeds have flourished into a success story that has made the organic Koraput Coffee a global brand. The premier caffeinated brew known as Koraput Coffee is mostly cultivated by tribals in the picturesque hills of Koraput as the cool climate is ideal for its cultivation. Also Read: Bijit Basumatary: Paddy farmer’s son whose organic teas from Assam have found market overseas.
Get to know Real Life Inspirational Stories in India with 30 Stades. You are welcome to 30 Stades. You will be motivated and inspired by our stories. 30 Stades brings many inspirational and motivational stories to your view. We have collections of stories that will inspire you greatly. The stories of 30 Stades are of people from different regions of the vast country. You will get to know about many stories here at 30 Stades. Many stories remain hidden and 30 Stades tries to bring such hidden stories from around the country. In pictures: the deafening silence of Mumbai during lockdown. Mumbai is the city of dreams that never sleeps. Its overcrowded local trains, platforms and stations have been central to many Bollywood blockbusters. Many heroes have metamorphosed from kid to adult while running after the famous kaali-peeli (black and yellow) taxis. Rasika Phatak: Maharashtra’s 23-year-old millionaire farmer & agriculture consultant. Sometime in 2016, Rasika Phatak’s father mortgaged 32 guntha (0.8 acre) land in Maharashtra’s Koladhare village, Sudhagad-Pali taluk, for Rs6 lakh.
Living in poverty, Anil Phatak did not have much choice as he needed the money for his eldest daughter’s marriage. The broker who helped him pawn the land did not clearly disclose the terms of the agreement. The family struggled and got back the land this year only after 23-year-old Rasika paid Rs 14.76 lakh for it, more than double the amount borrowed.
Firsthand learning A graduate in agriculture from Nashik’s Yashwantrao Chavan Open University, Rasika, now a millionaire farmer, learned farming first hand by toiling for hours in the fields of a large farmer in her village. Save the camel: it may be extinct in a few decades. Buried at birth, how Gulabo Sapera survived to become the global ambassador of Rajasthan’s Kalbelia folk dance. Why Is Women Empowerment Important? COVID-19 boosts demand for English language courses as India works and studies online. Nirmaan: A BITS Pilani students’ initiative that’s now empowering millions of youth, women & tribals. Gujarat: How this lawyer-turned-organic farmer made her family’s dairy business profitable. Organic farms turn favourite holiday getaways for Indians tired of urban life.
Maharashtra’s Chitrakathi painting: keeping alive the legacy of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s spies. Gujarat’s Pabiben Rabari: from a daily wager to a millionaire entrepreneur.