Shikshantar Sansthan, Udaipur, 2011-12
Overview
• Phase: Foundational journey of resistance and reimagination (Post-MBA exit)
• Focus: Challenging dominant education, economic, and development paradigms; practicing alternative ways of living, learning, and organizing
Key Work
• Organized Udaipur’s first Zero Budget Cycle Marathon with 200+ participants advocating sustainable transport
• Conducted and edited 16 interviews across 4 cities for Swapathgami Magazine, amplifying stories of regenerative alternatives
• Participated in flash mobs, street actions, and protests challenging systemic inequities
• Volunteered with grassroots movements like Narmada Bachao Andolan
Core Practices
• Frugal living to challenge dominant money narratives
• Creative public disruption and storytelling
• Community-driven learning and solidarity action
• Trust-based hospitality and slow living experiments
Impact
• Strengthened foundational values of self-designed learning, community resilience, and systemic critique
• Built early skills in facilitation, narrative activism, and regenerative thinking
• Laid the emotional and ethical groundwork for future journeys (Swaraj University, Cycle Yatra, 52 Parindey)
Walking out of an MBA program was my first conscious act of resistance — a refusal to accept the dominant model of education as the only path to meaning and success. Shikshantar became the ground where this resistance could take root, not as abstract ideology, but as daily practice.
Here, I experimented with ways of living and learning that defied mainstream systems: organizing Udaipur's first Zero Budget Cycle Marathon to advocate for sustainable transport; writing for Swapathgami Magazine, giving voice to alternative ways of knowing and being; living frugally, challenging the dominant narratives of money, consumption, and status. I participated in flash mobs that disrupted public spaces with questions, attended protests that questioned authority, and volunteered alongside grassroots movements that fought for ecological and social justice.
At Shikshantar, resistance was not framed as anger alone — it was reframed as creativity, solidarity, and courageous imagination. It was a living inquiry: how can we reclaim the right to dream differently, to live differently, to learn differently?
This experience shaped the foundations of all the work that would follow — teaching me that real change begins not with better answers, but with better questions, and the willingness to live them.