Most individuals strive in search for a collective to just have their voices heard to the society. Here is an individual who single handedly takes her own strides and has reached a level of working and execution where most of us dream for. Swastika Mukherjee has gone through a long journey from designing terrariums to saving plastic penetration in our forests and oceans to transplanting century old trees with fantastic survival rates. The soul of her brand The Leaf Story, includes works with large scale landscape designs, indoor plant green art installations, biophilic design and land art for an organic and sustainable lifestyle. She has been awarded the most Imaginative Product Designer of 2019 by India Today Magazine and exhibited her designs in France and India. She is the green thumb to our society and appreciating these initiatives by Swastika, we present her to our readers. Let us hear from her about her journey :
Q1. Tell us about your journey so far
I have worked on a lot of landscaping projects and one of them included a large scale tree transplantation scope. This was 5 years ago on a township site and had 182 trees to be transplanted. Now to go through this process of transplantation of these 80-100 year old trees was a herculean task in itself, although we completed the task with an excellent survival rate of 82%. We got a good mileage through media and the official circuits too but alas, it didn’t sound a bell straight into the hearts of people. We wanted people to self-realize the importance of keeping greens in their surroundings, be it indoors or outdoors. Hence we came up with the idea of starting The Leaf Story, this time starting inside out which includes a huge task of making people aware at first and then the loyalty towards an organic lifestyle follows.
Q2. What prompted you to to become an entrepreneur?
The drive for Sustainability and Restoring nature was the biggest drive to start up the business. The Green crusaders, Tree huggers, People raising a voice against rampant development, Groups trying hard to make even a little difference to make this globe more livable literally inspires me. These are my everyday inspirational lights I look out for. The search for such inspiration never ends, for which I travel a lot just to interact, live and learn from these gems.
Q3. Tell us something about your venture – The Leaf Story.
My forte is in Biophilic design, apart from landscape design and land art installation which aims at creating a strong connection between nature and man-made environment. This has proven benefits including helping office worker work more productively inside office, encouraging children to learn and helping hospital patients heal faster. However, awareness towards restoring nature around us is too little in reality. Many challenges are encountered during our daily interactions with people and groups. Many individuals have a huge misconception about mosquito menace without understanding that mosquitoes only breed where there is stagnant water and our designs promote ‘Save Water’, hence less watering is the key to our designs.
Further, it is difficult to maintain greenery is another common complaint, so individuals prefer to remove any greenery (old and new) around them and live a green free life. The Leaf Story aims to break this misinformation and make people aware that greens are actually one of the most important factors of our existence.
Q4. How do you balance your personal and professional career?
Balancing out the personal and professional life is easier as the passion for design and nature is a part of me. I am passionate about my work and dream for a greener and pollution free earth.
Q5. Which is the biggest challenge you have faced so far? What are your future plans?
Unawareness of the benefits of nature around us is the biggest challenge so far.
My future plan is to make a solid foundation about the necessity of greens in and around the spaces we live in order to make our cities more breathable. We want to connect to more people at the grass-root level so that the after-thought lies in them for long. It matters a lot about the mentality we are growing up with especially with respect to our surroundings. We plan to target Corporate firms, Government sectors as well as get them involved in these green initiatives at the highest levels of our system.
Q6. How has the lockdown impacted you as a professional?
Apart from stopping work at open site because of physical distance norms, the lockdown did not impact us much. We are also thrilled to know about people’s passion for greenery as lockdown spared a good amount of free time to get close to nature and adopt plants.
Q7. What would be your advice to young professionals and students?
Always follow your passion and work towards it. Failure is a part of learning process so never fear the failure.
Q8. How can our readers connect with you ?
The readers can reach out at our instagram page @ theleafstorybysm
Tags: Startups swastikamukherjee theleafstory
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