🌿 Why I Chose Farm Life After 50

A Journey from Urban Advocacy to Rural Re-rooting

There comes a time in life when the familiar path even one paved with accomplishments starts to feel misaligned. That turning point arrived for me post-50, not as a crisis, but as a quiet storm of questions.

With my children growing more independent and financial stability offering a safety net, I was left with something deeper to confront:What now?Is the work I’ve dedicated my life to still bringing peace, meaning, and growth?Is it helping the world in the way I hoped it would?

The Fracture of Rhythm and Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t just disrupt routines. it dissolved the structure that held much of our lives together. Like many, I began working from home, and in that unexpected stillness, I found space to reflect. Did I want to return to the chaos of urban deadlines and bureaucratic inertia?

My work as an urban designer especially in slum redevelopment and sustainable public infrastructure had been deeply meaningful.

But urban projects I was engaged with were stalling, often due to a lack of political will or a flawed development mindset that prioritized private interests over public good.

I had spent over two decades fighting for equitable urban spaces: reclaiming land for public use, improving walkability and transport access, and advocating and developing quality public spaces particularly in slum areas.

My team and I were recognized globally winning the UN Environment Award for reclaiming public space in some of Mumbai’s most difficult areas, the National Mobility Award for enhancing access to public transport, and receiving the UK government’s prestigious Chevening Scholarship to deepen this work.

Yet, as I stood at the crossroads, a new question haunted me:

Am I turning my back on the cause, or turning toward a new way of serving it?

Wrestling with Guilt, Fear, and Identity

The decision to step back from my NGO work and shift from an urban practice to rural farming was not romantic. It came with baggage a gnawing sense of guilt and fear.

Was I abandoning a battle I had fought so hard for?Was I giving up because change felt too slow and overwhelming?Was I not good enough to keep the momentum going in the city?Would leaving mean I had failed?

Letting go of my identity as an “urban change-maker” was a quiet grieving. Recognition, influence, awards  these had shaped my self-image. Moving to a village where I knew no one, and no one knew me, stripped me of those external definitions.

And yet, strangely, it was liberating.

Into the Unknown: Learning to Begin Again

I had no experience in farming. No clue how to live a rural life. I wasn’t trying to escape — I was trying to reconnect. With myself. With the earth. With a pace of life that allowed for reflection and depth.

Yes, the shift was hard. But it was necessary.

The urban world had taught me how to fight. The rural world is teaching me how to listen.

I still care deeply about justice, sustainability, and inclusive development but now, I want to live those values at the most fundamental level: through the soil, water, trees, and community. I want to create a learning space, rooted in nature-based solutions, where change can grow slowly but surely  away from city lights, but not away from purpose.

This is not a retreat. It is a reimagining.

A new chapter one that is quieter, perhaps, but no less meaningful.