Organic'ally resourceful

With her kind of bio — different courses from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, the Goethe-Universität in Germany and Bocconi University in Italy — Bhairavi Madhusudhan could have landed a plum job in any country but she chose to work in Bengalaru as the ‘Idea Cultivator’ at back2basics, an organic farming body that supplies organic produce the same day as it is harvested.

Though she had no prior experience in the field, she was inspired by her father, S Madhusudhan who is the firm’s chief farmer. She states,

“Inspired by his dedication and passion for growing healthy and organic produce, I decided to utilise my diverse industry experience, and began investing my time in this company.” The organic produce is grown using chemical-free methods like natural manure as fertilisers, crop rotation, and biological pest control.

Though busy overseeing the day-to- day activities of the company, it has not been all work and no play for Bhairavi. The multi-faceted woman has found time to indulge in a wide range of passions as eclectic as her degrees. Travelling tops her list and again it was her parents who inculcated a love for travel very early in life.

She says, “I am fluent in many languages and love to travel. I believe that there is no greater teacher than travel — it fundamentally changes you as a person because it helps you view things differently, be it your own country or culture or even your perspective on life and world issues. For me, traveling has always been an opportunity to learn something new from people and places that are not familiar to me.”

Bhairavi also loves extreme sports. “I’ve been cage diving with great white sharks in South Africa, cliff diving in Jamaica, skydiving and white water rafting in the US, scuba diving in Mauritius etc.”

Recalling the cage diving experience, she says, “It was a fantastic experience. Besides the adrenaline rush, I was most surprised by how misunderstood the shark species is – sharks are usually portrayed as dangerous, impulsive beasts, but in reality (thanks to a combination of poaching and global warming) they are not true predators, they are prey. Great white sharks in particular are apex predators, critical for the wellbeing of the marine ecosystem, and they are an endangered species.”

The pretty girl has a soft spot for animals and has three dogs, four cats and 35 birds at home. She also volunteers for Operation Smile (an NGO that provides cleft-lip and cleft palate surgeries for underprivileged children around the world), the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project (which provides mentorship for children from disadvantaged backgrounds) and CUPA (which provides resources and aid for animals in need).

Bhairavi does not take credit for her work but states, “It is critical to give back to society, in which ever way we can. Many people associate ‘giving back’ as being synonymous with donations or sponsorships. In my experience, there are many more ways to give back than purely monetary means; just spending time volunteering for a cause you are passionate or finding other ways to get involved and spread awareness goes a long way, probably more than we realise.”