“At night, we would huddle together in the fields, taking turns to keep watch,” Cheata begins, his voice heavy with years of unspoken struggle. 

“We would shout, throw stones, wave our hands, anything to scare them away, but the monkeys just sat there, unbothered. And when the elephants came, massive and silent, there was nothing we could do. By dawn, months of hard work would vanish before our eyes, crops flattened, and hopes crushed. It was as if the land we looked after for months turned against us while we slept.”

In the small, isolated village of Rasabeda, located within the hills of Jharkhand, this was a reality that defined daily life. The village, reachable only by a narrow, rocky trail suitable for motorcycles and followed by a five-kilometre trek, has little connectivity with the outside world. 

Crops are the lifeblood of its residents, and even small-scale losses can threaten families’ livelihoods. By day, mischievous monkeys raided the fields in groups, stripping fruits and grains with a precision that left farmers helpless. By night, elephants, moving through the hilly terrain, trampled fields under the cover of darkness. For the villagers, every season carried the anxiety of loss, sleepless nights, and a constant sense of vulnerability.

“When your farm is small, every crop counts. Even a small loss hurts, but this was never small. Entire portions of our harvest could be gone in a single night. Sometimes, we would stay awake for days, just to protect what little we had. It was exhausting, terrifying, and there seemed to be no solution,” the 45-year-old farmer explains.

Human-wildlife conflict is an escalating issue across India, particularly in forested and hilly regions. Traditional methods to deter animals, such as firecrackers, shouting, or electric fencing, are either inadequate, unaffordable, or hazardous to the animals themselves. In this landscape of fear and frustration, a young mind decided to step in, armed not just with empathy but with ingenuity.

A young student confronts a crisis

Avi Mohan Kumar Shuklaa, at just 17, was completing his Class 12 at Lady K C Roy Memorial School in Ranchi, carving a path that would soon impact lives far beyond the classroom. While many of his peers were considering college entrance exams or extracurricular achievements, he was building something to help the farmers.

“I wanted to do something meaningful, something that could make a real difference. I could not just watch people struggle and lose their hard-earned crops. I wanted to act,” he tells The Better India.

The flicker came in August 2025, during the monsoon season. His grandfather returned home, his face etched with worry, recounting a neighbour’s devastating loss to a herd of elephants. “They lost crops worth nearly one lakh rupees in one night,” he remembers his grandfather saying. “Months of hard work, gone in........

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