On an ordinary afternoon inside a bustling textile factory in Haryana, Salinder Kumar and his colleague Rajesh Goswami stumbled upon something that would change their lives forever.

For years, the duo had worked side by side — Salinder on the machines, Rajesh at a desk — barely making ends meet. “Jobs offered security but restricted us. We were searching for ways to break free,” Salinder recalls.

During a short break in 2013, Rajesh was browsing the internet when an unusual ad caught his eye — a training programme on pearl farming by the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA) in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

He called Salinder over. “Pearl farming?” Salinder asked, puzzled. It was unlike anything they had ever done. But the idea took root — driven by their shared dream of financial freedom.

The advertisement presented an opportunity that promised an income free of ceilings. The notion of cultivating something as luxurious as pearls sparked a flicker of hope that perhaps this was their chance to redefine their fortunes.

The seed of an unlikely dream

“Earlier, the idea of doing poultry farming had crossed our minds. It was a safer, more familiar avenue, but fraught with cutthroat competition. Pearl farming, though foreign, offered an untapped potential, a niche that was waiting to be explored,” says 47-year-old Salinder.

The decision to leap into the unknown sea of possibilities, as Salinder would later describe it, began to take root.

Empowered by the thought of being their own bosses, Salinder and Rajesh mustered the courage to explore this new venture. The duo........

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