Composting Against Climate Change

There was a cow in the middle of the road. This wasn’t just another lounging cow—indifferent to its urban surroundings. It had an air of discomfort. Deepesh Bhaskar motioned to his cab driver to stop so that he could take a closer look. There it was, the cow, dry-heaving helplessly as the traffic navigated around it. Deepesh instantly enquired the nearby shopkeepers about its owner. 

A woman emerged, carrying a bucket of cow dung diluted in water. The concoction instigated the cow to vomit—spewing out a meter length of plastic. “We could not save the cow,” he says with dismay. The incident would trigger Deepesh to quit his corporate job and found Nilayaan—a product company with a focus on reducing waste.

“I studied at the Madras School of Social Work (MSSW),” he reveals. Immediately after college, he dived into a marketing job with study abroad conduction programs where he would coach and mentor students. “Looking back, it is ironic that I played a part in sending young talent outside India,” he chuckles. 

By 2018, he had climbed the corporate ladder eventually bagging a high-paying sales job at Byju’s. The pandemic was a blessing in…