: ‘Building A Mud House Was Tougher Than Cracking JEE’: IIT Couple Quit US Jobs to Farm #IndiaNEWS #Natural Farming Some would say that cracking the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) to find a place

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‘Building A Mud House Was Tougher Than Cracking JEE’: IIT Couple Quit US Jobs to Farm #IndiaNEWS #Natural Farming
Some would say that cracking the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) to find a place in an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is a difficult task. However, for Sakshi Bhatia and Arpit Maheshwari, both IIT toppers, building a mud house in Badnagar, a village 50 km away from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, has been the most challenging task so far.
The couple chose to give up their high-paying corporate jobs in the US to settle down in India where they set up a natural farm, which they call ‘Jeevantika’.
On this 1. 5 acre of land, the couple grows close to 85 per cent of all they consume. “The only thing we continue to buy from another farm is oil since we do not have the machine yet,� Sakshi tells The Better India.
This computer science engineer couple has known each other for more than a decade. Married in 2013, Sakshi says, “Traveling together is one thing that we both enjoy. We are grateful to have got the chance to travel soon after we got married. �
Through several of these travels, the one thing that they both felt was a deep desire to have more time to travel. “We wanted our travels to allow us to explore. Meet the locals, eat with them and learn their culture. That was what was driving us,� adds Arpit. In 2015, giving wings to this, they decided to pack their bags and head to South America, with no return date in mind.
‘Being one with nature made us happy. ’
Sakshi and Arpit
The trip to South America was “a revelation�. “The futility of consumerism started to gnaw at us. Thankfully, we [Sakshi and I] were on the same page about how we felt. Before we headed to South America we sold off most of our material possessions and converted our earnings into fixed deposits,� he says. Here, they spent time teaching kids and experienced a very different kind of life.
Backpacking across the Amazon, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia helped the couple grow conscious and sensitive toward the environment.
“This prompted us to relook and reevaluate our life decisions. We headed back to India and decided to spend time in an ecovillage in Auroville, Puducherry, where community living, farm life and eco-consciousness is known to be high. It was here that we learnt about natural farming, which was great for land rejuvenation and community living,� says Sakshi. Spending time in Auroville just helped them connect the dots.
While being in Auroville was great, Sakshi says that if they wanted to build a community, being able to speak the local language was imperative. “We chose to move back to central India for this reason. Learning Tamil would have taken us a long time and the joy of being closer to family was a bonus for both of us,� she adds.

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