Organo Editorial

Fast-paced, technology-assisted, rapidly growing urban settings are considered a prospective place to live in this digital era.

Considering the benefits that we enjoy at Naandi, the adjustments that we had to make were hardly any. Before we moved here, we were living in Banjara Hills, which is right in the heart of the city and we had a set lifestyle with our routines and house help.

As we, humans, increase our presence and reach, on this planet, human-animal interaction is becoming increasingly restricted to pets and livestock as wild animals, being hostile, pose a threat to our increasingly urban civilisations.

I have had quite a modern and upscale life all along. After I was diagnosed with cancer, there was always a deep desire to return to my roots.

Organo Et School conducted a workshop on “how to grow your own microgreens” with Students of grade 5, Sloka Waldorf School that had 31 students participate in each session

In our effort to design and manifest eco-habitats, we come across this question, often from clients and sometimes from collaborators: why are you developing a community so far away from the city?

Whether you grew up in a village, a suburb, or in a big city, you probably spent a lot of time playing outside, getting dirty, and coming home happy.

My wife’s native village is a small place called Ulavapadu in Prakasam District of Andhra Pradesh. Although her side of the family has moved to Hyderabad a long time ago, her grandmother from her father’s side still lives there.

A rich old farmer, who felt that he had not many more days to live, called his sons to his bedside.

Growing water needs of humans led to rapid extraction of surface and groundwater. This put pressure on the traditional systems and they started disappearing.

I moved to Organo Naandi three years ago and love everything about the place. I do not feel very comfortable when I see a snake, though. I have seen a few in the community and that makes me quite uncomfortable. However, I do accept it as part of living with nature.

Only 33% of the energy that goes into power plants – coal, hydro, geothermal, etc.is converted to a useful form of electricity that is supplied to homes. This means 2/3rd of the entire energy is either lost in the power plants or in transmission. This is in the U.S. In India, I am guessing the statistic is at least as bad and most probably much worse. 

Ensuring 100% construction in the community well before the launch of the community is the pivotal aspect of ensuring green living from day one at the Rurban Nest Living community.

Planet Earth not only binds us all together but is also the source of our sustenance. If we’re not mindful of our actions, we’re doing ourselves and our future generations great disservice. So, why not start early? Why not inculcate the sense of responsibility towards our surroundings in our young ones?

Our discovery of Organo Naandi was rather accidental. We were here for a massage therapy session for me, one weekend. The moment we stepped into Naandi, it was love at first sight.

Ageing is a natural process where we go through physical, cognitive, social and familial losses and experience disabilities that leads towards assistance for activities of daily living. The physical well-being of older people has always received a lot of emphasis for this very reason.

While private properties, lands, titles and rights secure a good foundation for the future generations to prosper, is this enough? In a world that is changing rapidly, is there something else that must be inherited by children to make sure they are happy and content.

The right time to move from our Gachibowli home in the city was when our son passed out of high school and we were on the lookout for a new property, a few months ago. Unlike the many other cookie-cutter kinds of villa projects in the city that we saw, Organo Naandi appealed to me for the wide-open spaces, great infrastructure, cleaner air amongst a host of other healthy benefits. 

Tiruchengode in Tamil Nadu is called the borewell rig capital of India. With up to 20,000 borewell rigs digging originating from this area and travelling as far as Rajasthan, and digging anywhere between 1000 feet to 1400 feet daily for many months of the year across India, the amount of water being pumped from deep aquifers in the Earth is unimaginable

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

Our primary motivation to take up a place at Organo Naandi was for the organic farming that it is centered around. As a family, we have always enjoyed the idea of having our own vegetable garden and using our own produce for lunch and dinner.

What are the three most essential things in real estate? Location, location, location! - a mantra often repeated in the real estate industry. However, Covid-19 has brought focus on the need for us to relook at the mantra.

We, as a race, are social beings. Regardless of where we live in the world, we feel belonged only when we are a part of society. As such, we all have a responsibility to help others and improve the state of the community and world that we live in. 

With a population that increases every minute, the food supply is hardly sufficient to meet the rising demand. In order to increase the yield to meet the supply, farmers are resorting to using dangerously high amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Consequently, quantity comes at the cost of quality.

The interpretation of the term ‘Water Management’ today is not what it used to be 5 or 10 years ago. Population expansion and rapid urban development increased the demand for water supply which in turn depleted our water resources like never before.

With the advent of COVID19, our lifestyles have undergone huge changes. For many of us modern professionals, working from home was a privilege that our respective firms offer once in a while. But with this being our reality now, working from home seems to have a high list of benefits that sway the argument of “Work from Home vs Work from Office” in its favour.

As the word suggests, slow food is in every way opposite to fast food. The slow food movement started in the 1980s in Rome, when a group of protestors gathered outside the newly opened franchise of McDonald’s fast-food restaurant and started chanting the slogans “We don’t want fast food, we want slow food.” Soon, the slow food manifesto was signed to escape from the “tediousness” of fast food and give time to enjoying the richness and aromas of local cuisines.

The concept of Rurban Living evolved with the growing need for developing and living in an environment devoid of all the negative aspects of Urban Life

The feeling of our mind settling into a state of calm when we listen to the flowing water in a stream, leaves rustling in the wind or the chirping of birds has been scientifically proven to have a curative effect on our psyche. 

Children have a tendency to hoard, that may include all forms of plastics. Think of the last birthday party you attended. I bet all you can think of are plastic cups and plates, glitter wrapping paper, toys, wasted food, and one or two garbage bags filled with disposable plastic cutlery, none of which are recyclable.

We are very delighted to announce that BBC, in collaboration with the World Green Building Council, has shortlisted Organo Naandi for their "Building a Better Future" Series that will be telecasted worldwide.

At Organo, sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support the present and future generations.

Organo Naandi is the manifestation of Organo’s efforts towards creating a Rurban Eco-habitat based on triple-bottom-line principles. Situated 17km from Hyderabad, Organo Naandi offers sustainable living space, conscious community and opportunities to work with nature and experience a combination of urban refinement and rural ethnicity.

Children and technology – love it or hate it, smart devices are in your children’s lives and they’re here to stay. Offering many great opportunities for more engaged learning, technology helps a child’s progression in subjects that traditionally have had a reputation for struggling to engross pupils, such as math or physics. However, technology has other shameful perks. 

As we are nearing the lockdown period, I have realized that I have suffered a terrible affliction - Nature-Deficit Disorder, which is a phrase coined by Richard Louv to indicate problems arising from restricted access to nature and the lure of electronic devices. It is during times like these, that eco-habitats can confer benefits to its residents which can help maintain physiological and psychological well-being. 

Food miles essentially refers to the distance travelled by our food to reach our plate from the producers. It also refers to the impact it has on the environment by utilising the fossil fuels needed for transportation of the product to reach our retailer. Are there ways through which we could reduce food miles? These are some of the practices that could help us achieve this: 

Covid-19 pandemic has brought to prominence indications that there are higher infection rates per capita in urban areas in comparison to less dense or rural areas. As we can see from various news articles and Covid-19 statistics, high-density metros appear to have higher incidences of Covid-19 when compared to less density or rural areas.

Covid-19 pandemic has brought to prominence the indications that there are higher infection rates per capita in urban areas in comparison to less dense or rural areas. In this case, there is a large body of evidence that shows urban environments have a significant impact on our health. Hence it is more crucial that we relook at Urban environments and Rural environments from sustainability and well-being perspectives apart from the economic perspective. 

Nature forced us to live Life.On.A.Slow.Track and to appreciate simple moments in life. Now is an excellent time to pause and reflect on what we can do better and how we can be better, both as businesses as well as people.

We were living in the heart of the city before moving to Organo Naandi. Almost 10 years of city living as a family. Life in the city was fun too since we were part of a huge community there. And the apparent city comforts, social life, and accessibility to everything made it a cakewalk.

Organo Naandi community members continue to demonstrate the spirit of sustainability. And this is what inspired us to continue building more eco-habitats and create physical infrastructure for families wanting to live more responsibly.

Amenities in a community or neighbourhood are important parts of the social infrastructure. The conveniences are the little details that not only make our life comfortable & healthy but also help in preserving nature and improving social bonding.

After staying in a bustling city filled with smoke, traffic, and pollution for years, an evolved group of doctors had decided to create an ecosystem that produces food and shelter for the residents without resource depletion

Organo took up the challenge of developing eco-habitats in harmony with nature. With the idea of combining the benefits of urban and rural, we created the ‘Rurban’ way of living.

Every home generates both organic and inorganic waste and managing this waste on a daily basis calls for some planning as collection and disposal are integral parts of its management. Waste poses a threat to public health and the environment if it is not stored, collected, and disposed of properly. The perception of waste as an unwanted material with no intrinsic value has dominated attitudes towards disposal.

Sustainability, Biodiversity, Harnessing Natural Resources and Organic Living are the driving principles of Organo. However, it's not just within the community, but Organo has made an impact on the neighboring villages - Aziznagar, Yenkepally and Bakaram - as well.

Two weeks of lockdown have gone past. Most people have been struggling with restricted environments, but I’m quite enjoying this rejuvenating period at home. And the one and only reason for this is that my home is within the eco-habitat we co-created! I dread to imagine how it would have been, had we been living in the dense city! 

The doctors from Nizamabad, who were inspired by the concept of Organo, wanted to have their own nest which could reflect the Rurban life. Rapid urbanisation and loss of safe & green surroundings for their children to grow made them relook at the way they were living. And their search ended at finding Organo that completely mirrored their desires. 

The most interesting synchronism has been Rurban Nest. A group of doctors in Nizamabad was looking out for an organisation that could help build a sustainable community, which essentially is an eco-habitat. As Rumi said, what you seek is seeking you; they reached out to Organo after their intensive search. Now, we are mentoring them to reach their objectives. 

I have a confession to make: I like looking at ants and ant colonies. They fascinate me! This fascination is the result of so many unanswered questions that crop up in my mind when I see a colony of ants. How are they able to build such complex structures? Is there a Chief Architect in the colony drawing up blueprints and communicating in Ant Speak? Does the aggregation of instinctive behaviour of each ant lead to a collective intelligence that is amazingly intricate? Maybe. 

Long ago, I remember my friend telling me a story about how the world is going to end in the year 2012. This was in primary school and I thought I still had plenty of time left to play football, eat junk food and more generally, have fun before the world comes crashing down.

Collective farming is a farmer’s community that shares farming-related infrastructure while enjoying the fruits of collective living. Farming is a laborious job, which includes a number of small tasks that need to be done right for results. As it is, farming is an unforeseen process where there is a varied number of unanticipated issues of pests, irregular plant growth and supply of nutrition which only becomes adverse with the conventional supply of power, water and labour each of which has their own set of uncertainties and irregularities. 

Organo Naandi is an urban farming community driven passionately by the ethos of “agro culture & sustainable organic farming”, an Eco-Habitat. Naāndi, Sanskrit for ‘the start’ is our first step towards change, a small attempt to connect to the lost thread of value systems and lifestyle native to our land, harmonizing it to today's necessities.

Most of us who live in the city have this innate urge to connect with nature. It’s human instinct to connect with the five elements that are the essence of life. It’s also human nature to aspire for growth and development.

Owning a farmhouse and living around greenery made me think that I am going to excel even in this field. To my surprise, the reality was something else which I never expected. 

“I still remember the farmer vividly, from whom I bought a piece of land, even though more than 10 years have gone past. He was in need of money and I was in a state of surplus looking for a land to invest in. My intention was to build a farmhouse and start farming; an idea that everyone like me would have; of getting away from the city, growing my own veggies and having a healthy green environment for relaxation. 

A strange thought occurred to me. Imagine your home is a black box and you are inside it with nothing else around you. Every resource that you would need – every bit of food that you eat, every watt of power that you burn, every drop of water that you drink, every bit of furniture on which you rest - is coming to you from outside this Black Box. 

“Sustainable living is not a one-time establishment. It is rather a way of living where we will have to evolve and adapt continuously to the surrounding we live. Here area few Naandian's who have made a conscious choice of being in a Rurban community. Let’s hear their journey from being an urbanite to a rurbanite.

Organo communities out forward a way of living where life moves on a slow-track amidst the flora and fauna, like-minded people, neighbouring villages and more. Hence it is important for the community to be responsible, inclusive and caring towards others and the surroundings.

Building an eco-community is just halfway through the journey of sustainable living. Rest of the journey involves certain lifestyle modifications and adaptations that eco-community dwellers will have to practice to fulfill the sustainability requirements. Let’s take reference from Robert Gilma’s “8 steps to creating your own sustainable community” and find out how Organo Naandi is adapting those principles.

Organo was founded on the idea of environmentally conscious living. Our primary goal was to develop communities that are self-reliant in seven strands of sustainability - Energy, Food, Water, Air, Earth, People, and Shelter.

As we reflect on examples of entrepreneurship and leadership in our nation, we see that people are increasingly choosing business ideas that enhance the lives of people, lessen our impact on the environment and direct focus on shared prosperity. During the last 25-year growth of our organization FHD Group, we have started pursuing Sustainability Entrepreneurship and have expanded into multiple sectors and businesses that continue to be built on Triple Bottom Line goals.

“Co-creating” and “Collaborating” are imperative for a Rurban community to thrive. Should it be confined within the community walls? Not actually. Inter-dependence and co-existence have been the keys of human survival and sustenance.

Organo’s intent was not restricted to building just a `Rurban’ community for people living within but also to make an impact on social, economic, agricultural progress & aid skill development in the neighbouring villages.

“Co-creating eco-habitats that celebrate living”is the motto that drives us to build our communities. For us, an Eco-Habitat “is a natural ecosystem integrated into living spaces for urban dwellers, consciously recreated with sustainability at the core; designed to have minimal negative impact on the environment.”

The constant rise in population and consumer demand post green revolution urged the food industry to produce more to meet the requirements. For an uninterrupted cultivation process and higher yields, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hybrid seeds and more came into place. As expected, production increased and people all over the world started relying more and more on these chemical products for better results.

How sure are we of the purity of our food nowadays? The degree of adulteration, chemicals, and high yielding hybrids, have drastically impacted the food quality. Our search for good food usually ends up in supermarkets where we get various options of imported, frozen, seasonal, all-year-round and more. But can we monitor or validate their claims of quality standards? The answer is NO.

Imagine waking up to a day where there is no water! Sounds scary right? Unfortunately, we are slowing walking towards that stage of no or extremely limited water resources. Knowingly or unknowingly, each activity of ours is contributing to this every day.

“The concept of being a locavore, or one who chooses whenever possible to incorporate locallygrown or locally produced food into one’s nutrition plan, is of great importance”. Tyler FlorenceHave you ever considered the importance of consuming locally grown food? Though the trendof locally grown food is slowly picking up speed, many are still in the run for exotic imported foodor genetically modified ones. Shouldn’t we eat them at all? Yes, we can. Is it the most healthyoption? No, it isn’t.

Sustainability, biodiversity, harnessing natural resources and Organic living is the driving principle of Organo.However, it’s not just within the community, but Organo has made an impact on the neighboring villages – Aziznagar, Yenkepally, and Bakaram – as well. “Ecological balance cannot be achieved in isolation,” says Lakshmi Battula, who is in charge of the farming and animal husbandry at Organo.

Remember them? Our gentle little guests! Every morning they would wake us up with a familiar tune. Perched on ledges and lofts, they would hop right inside our houses and in the balconies the whole day, full of life, taking occasional tiny bites from our leftover supper. Nesting on low branches, in our homes and in sheds, they would put a smile on our faces us no matter what. Sparrows have been an integral part of our growing up years.

They are professionals by the weekday and community farmers by the weekend. They grow their own vegetables and fruits, breed their own chicken and raise their own cattle for fresh milk. Apart from this, they engage...

At Organo, every element of nature – air, water, earth – is harnessed, preserved and nourished. According to ayurveda, human physiology is a reflection of the laws of the universe, and the more in tune our lives are with nature, the healthier...

Tremendous amount of energy is gathered around the Agnihotra copper pyramid just at Agnihotra time. A magnetic-type field is created, which neutralizes negative energies and reinforces positive energies. – Jaya Prakash, Architect, Vaastu...