Born and brought up in Mangaluru, Chethan Shetty would spend all day playing in paddy fields and between tall trees of areca nuts surrounding their house.
While working on his corporate desk, these memories would keep rushing back and remind him that something was missing.
So in 2017, he quit his lucrative eight-year-long corporate career to farm on his ancestral land in Bellare village, Karnataka, and started growing exotic fruits.
Today, he has over 2,500 areca nut trees, 800 pepper vines, 50 nutmeg trees, 300 coconut trees, 650 rambutan trees, 100 mangosteen trees, and 50 avocado plants.
To set up this fruit farm, the 38-year-old exhausted all his savings of Rs 10 lakh. Last year, he earned Rs 15 lakh by selling nearly Rs 5,200 kg of produce.
His fresh farm produce is supplied to wholesale traders and retailers across the country including large cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Amritsar, and Hyderabad.
“It is not just about money. It is about how content you feel in whatever work you do. I’m happy now, and it is only because of the decision I took a few years ago,” he says.
Chethan says he does not miss city life. “I find peace in what I do now. I do breakfast, lunch, and dinner on time. And I eat what I grow,” he says.
“I am a man who likes to be in nature, especially when it rains. Now, we do not have to pay to be in a resort; we are in a resort every day,” he adds.
A typical day for him now starts and concludes with switching on/off the water pump, and not the laptop!