The interviews and reporting of this story were conducted in 2023.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to claim that the atmosphere at The Chlorophyll Estate — a farm stay on the outskirts of Mumbai — could be an antidote to the chaos of the city.

One would swear that time ticks at a slower pace here, and the sky is definitely a brighter blue. That this place — with its fields of Italian basil, mulberries, stevia, and rose apples — is just an hour’s drive from the big city is almost unbelievable.

“This transformation was not an overnight one,” points out Keyur Barad (38) and one-half of the entrepreneur brother duo who spearheaded this project. He clarifies that it took him and his brother Nishit (41) 15 long years of “toil, sweat, time, savings and sheer perseverance” to create this.

Across the three-acre estate in Dahisar village, Manor taluka, the style mutates widely. While the farm and the surrounding food forest have earthy notes to them, the farmstay’s facade of wood, cane, ceramic, glass, metal and stone is in a luxurious contrast. But for the Barad brothers, the entire project is rooted in family. Everything else is secondary.

“Our story is not just about Nishit and me, but about two brothers across two generations,” Keyur says, referring to his father and uncle who laid the roots of this project in 2007. “My father (Girdhar) bought the land for my uncle, who wanted to turn to nature and leave his business and city life behind.”

When Girdhar Barad stumbled upon the land, all it had was a single tamarind tree in the middle of murum (a type of laterite red stone which easily disintegrates).

But, from that state of almost being a hermit’s recluse to that of being one for travellers from across the country, the land’s purpose has remained unchanged.

The journey from one tamarind tree to a booming forest

Now, the age-old murum has since been replaced by 140 varieties of fruit trees, vegetables, spices, herbs, and flowers. These 800-odd trees, says Keyur, comprise five varieties of mangoes, four varieties of papayas from Indonesia and Thailand, seven........

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