In my mother's childhood home, nothing was wasted, and everything had a purpose. She still remembers tying together dried coconut sticks to make brooms, using the fibrous husks as scrubs to clean vessels, and placing hard coconut shells over the fire to boil water for baths and cooking. Every part of the tree was useful, which is why it's known as Kalpavriksha—the "wish-fulfilling tree." The same respect extended to cows, often called Kamadhenu, the divine giver of all sustenance. My mother made cow dung cakes with her bare hands and applied them to the mud floor of their home—a natural disinfectant, pest repellent, and thermal insulator all in one. Even the cow urine was saved and used as a cleaning agent. These weren't just survival techniques—they were everyday acts of care, passed down by women who knew how to live gently and wisely with the earth.
They taught by doing. No lectures, just a thousand tiny rituals that made sustainability an unspoken law.
As I got older, traveled across many countries, and studied conservation formally, I realized how deeply those lessons were already in my blood. And how many different cultures incorporate the same values.
They were not ancient relics to admire; they were blueprints for survival.
Today, I see South Asian women, young and old environmentalists alike, carrying these same instincts forward in powerful new ways. They are conservationists working on human-wildlife conflict with elusive snow leopards in the Himalayas, farmers reviving ancient grain varieties that can survive floods and droughts, and community leaders building organizations to defend sacred groves and forests that have sustained local villages for generations. We are policy advocates, wildlife veterinarians, seed savers, and educators—merging tradition with science, memory with innovation.
