Why we left Bangalore for a farm in Goa

We had good jobs. A comfortable apartment in Indiranagar. Weekend plans that stretched months ahead. By most measures, life was working.

And yet, somewhere around the third year of it, we started to feel like we were living inside someone else's schedule.

The decision

It did not happen in a single moment. It was a slow accumulation. Mornings where we woke up tired before the day had started. Weekends that disappeared into errands. A creeping sense that the things we were working toward kept moving further away.

Sai found the farm by accident. A listing for a small piece of land in South Goa, a few kilometres from the coast. We drove down on a long weekend, meaning to look and leave. We stayed for three days.

By the time we drove back to Bangalore, we had already decided.

What we found

The farm was not dramatic. It was overgrown and quiet and needed a lot of work. There was a neem tree that had clearly been there for decades, some coconut palms, and a small structure that would eventually become where we live and work.

What struck us most was the silence. Not the absence of sound — there are birds, insects, wind — but the absence of urgency. Nothing on the farm demanded that you go faster.

Growing things

The first year was mostly learning. We planted vegetables and failed at some of them. We learned when to water and when to leave things alone. We learned that the land has its own rhythm and that fighting it is always more exhausting than working with it.

The neem tree became the centre of everything. We started harvesting its leaves. Then wondering what else we could do with them.

That wondering is how the soap started.

What this place has taught us

That things take longer than you think. And that this is fine.

That growing your own food, even a small fraction of it, changes how you think about everything you eat.

That slowing down is not a retreat. It is a different kind of ambition.

We are still learning this. We expect we will be learning it for a long time.