The story of Ekant Farms begins long before drip lines, compost pits, or citrus orchards. It begins in the late 1940s, when my grandfather crossed the newly drawn border from Pakistan and made his way to a small village called Abubshahar, near Mandi Dabwali in Haryana, just a short drive from what is now the India–Pakistan border. He arrived with very little, but he carried with him an unshakable belief in discipline, hard work, and the quiet wisdom of the soil.

In that remote village, he spent his entire life building from scratch. First, he set up a small business, and whatever he earned, he slowly converted into land. Over time, those scattered plots became his laboratory. He experimented with new fruit varieties and crops, worked alongside local farmers, and treated each season as both a teacher and a test. Innovation and self-discipline were not buzzwords for him; they were  daily practice, etched into long days under the sun and quiet evenings planning the next sowing.

When my grandfather passed his work on, he was not just handing over land. He was passing on a way of life.

In the late 1980s, my father inherited that land and the traditions that came with it. He decided to dream bigger. He planted 10,000 citrus trees and began shaping the farm from the ground up, tree by tree, row by row. Alongside citrus, he introduced new wheat and rice varieties to improve productivity, always looking for ways to make each acre do just a little better than the year before.

But yield was never his only goal. My father believed that if the land takes care of you, you must take care of the land. He embraced sustainable agriculture practices long before they became fashionable: managing crop residues instead of burning them, turning biomass back into compost, and returning carbon to the soil after every harvest to keep it alive and fertile. He invested in drip irrigation to manage water wisely, reducing wastage in a region where every drop matters. Season after season, he walked the orchards daily—checking the trees, feeling the soil, listening to what the land was saying.

Those citrus trees bore fruit for nearly two decades, feeding our family, supporting us through difficult years, and giving my father a sense of deep purpose. For over 30 years, his life revolved around those fields. Eventually, as time always does, it asked him to pass the baton.

That baton reached me at a crossroads

By then, my life looked very different from my father’s and grandfather’s. I had studied and lived in the West, trained in the legal profession, and built a career path that seemed far removed from the dust of village roads and the scent of citrus blossoms. On paper, the choice was clear: continue climbing in the legal world, or return to a farm in rural Haryana that demanded early mornings, uncertain weather, and long-term patience.

But life is rarely lived on paper.

On one side was my legal career, the product of years of study, effort, and opportunity. On the other side was the farm—the land that had educated my grandfather without books, given my father his life’s mission, and quietly supported our family through its harvests. It was the place that had been our safety net in difficult times, a living memory of every sacrifice and every risk my family had taken.

In the end, the soil won.

I chose to come back—to walk the same fields, touch the same trees my father had planted, and ask a new question: how can I build my own 30-year story here? My journey now is about weaving together the worlds I have known: using the perspective and discipline of my legal training, the innovation and sustainability tools available today, and the timeless wisdom my father and grandfather earned through seasons of trial and error.

Over the next decades, my aim is to honor what came before me while creating something new: a farm that is deeply rooted in tradition yet open to modern practices; a place where compost pits and drip lines sit comfortably alongside data, experimentation, and regenerative thinking. Just as my grandfather did with a handful of land, and my father did with 10,000 citrus trees, I am beginning my own chapter—one harvest at a time.

This is not just a story about three generations. It is a story about how land holds memory, how trees carry time, and how each generation is given a chance to decide what legacy it wants to leave behind.