The interviews and reporting for this story were originally done in July 2024.

The next time you find yourself in Nashik, Maharashtra, here’s an idea: Enter your destination as ‘Adiem Kaanan Farmstay’ in your Maps app. Then put your faith in the winding roads as the GPS guides you to a six-acre piece of land many call ‘an unexpected beauty’.

Pro tip: While you keep the road in focus, allow yourself a glance or two outside the windows. When it comes to delicious views, the ‘Grape Capital of India’ doesn’t disappoint. Miles of sprawling vineyards will guide you to this farmstay, which is one of Nashik’s best-kept secrets.

Built with locally grown bamboo and mud from the fields, the farmstay embodies sustainability, not just in its construction but also in the daily habits of the family that runs it.

Madhu Chougaonkar, the proud 59-year-old host, has a repository of such stories to narrate, but there will be time to hear all of them later, preferably over some tasty food.

As you enter the premises, I want you to take a minute to admire the lamps in the homestay’s living room. Would you believe that they are made from recycled wood?

As Madhu’s daughter, Disha Madhu (Disha and her brother Deek have taken their mother’s name as their last name to shatter patriarchal stereotypes) points out, the lamps are one of the many sustainable renditions in the homestay.

A post shared by Adiem Farmstay Nashik (@adiem_homestay_nashik)

For a PhD graduate — Madhu has done her doctorate in ‘Reconstruction of Eco-Feminism’ — and a designer — Disha was working with a leading sports goods retailer in Bengaluru — it must have taken guts to quit the corporate hustle and set their sights on greener pastures (pun intended).

“Not really,” says Disha. “Just a wake-up call.”

‘We didn’t want to be a part of the system anymore’

What would your first thought be if you saw a pretty t-shirt priced at Rs 200 and on sale? “How cheap! Let me buy it.”

Madhu would react the same way when she saw such offers on her shopping expeditions, not just in India but also in Bangladesh and Pakistan, where she was working with NGOs championing change at grassroot levels in underserved communities.

Her experiences gave her an insight into........

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