In a sunlit corner of her Bengaluru home, 15-year-old Manya Harsha sits bent over a sieve, her hands steady as she presses onion peels into textured sheets of handmade paper. The air carries an earthy smell. Around her are no machines or polished tools, only water, pulp, patience, and a determination that seems far bigger than her years.

Each attempt takes time. Each sheet asks for care. Yet Manya stays with the process, shaping waste into something useful with the same belief that guides much of her life: almost nothing needs to be thrown away too soon.

For Manya, sustainability has never been an abstract lesson from a school textbook. It has always felt close, lived, and familiar. It is the way she sees the world, the way she has grown up, and the value she carries into everything she creates.

Manya is a writer, poet, climate advocate, and founder of Grandma’s Green Weave, a youth-led initiative that upcycles discarded sarees and textiles into reusable cloth bags, reducing single-use plastic and reviving older sustainable practices. 

She has been speaking up for the planet since she was eight. “For me, sustainability is not something new; it is something I saw at home. I just chose to continue it,” she tells The Better India.

‘My grandma’s stories made me love nature’

Manya’s journey began at home with her maternal grandmother, V Rudramma. “My grandmother used to tell me stories about her childhood — how they planted saplings, nurtured them, collected flowers and spent time in nature,” Manya recalls. “I saw her recycle old fabrics into cloth bags that she carried to the market. That stayed with me.”

Her mother, Chitrashee, traces that influence back to her own mother. “If there is one person behind Manya’s love for nature and writing, it is my mother,” she shares. “The older generation lived sustainably without calling it sustainability. They just lived that way.”

For Manya, sustainability was part of daily life long before it became a larger conversation.

Her parents, Harsha BS and Chitrashee Harsha, nurtured her love for nature by travelling extensively across India from the time she was just six months old. Unlike conventional family trips to commercial cities, they intentionally explored villages, forests, farms, and ecological regions.

“We have covered almost the entire country by road,” Harsha shares. “She saw how farmers work in the hot sun, how forests are cut to build cities, and how ecosystems function. That practical exposure shaped her understanding.”

Those journeys became her first classroom.

A lake and a reserve forest formed the backdrop of Manya’s childhood. Time spent around them made nature feel close, familiar, and worth protecting. Through plantation drives, birdwatching, and conservation activities, she began to understand early that care for the environment starts with small, seemingly ordinary steps.

That instinct showed up at eight when she organised a ‘water walkathon’ [awareness march] with friends and families from her apartment. Together, they marched, planted saplings, and pledged to protect the Earth.

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