First paycheck, Rs 6000, and savings – Rs 20 lakh – That’s when Ustow Pradhan left the job that paid him Rs 24 lakhs a month in Delhi and moved back to his hometown in Darjeeling to ‘take it easy’.
Driven by the motivation to regenerate, Pradhan was always drawn to slow-living after working in the corporate world for nearly 15 years. He shared his journey with Wint Wealth on YouTube on how he built a sustainable ecosystem in the tourist hotspot of Darjeeling.
In his childhood days, he hardly spent any time indoors, where he grew up in a small town between Siliguri and Darjeeling. Sharing that he has always been connected with Mother Nature, today, in his own ecosystem, he doesn’t “need to think before you breathe, think before your drink, or think before you eat.”
From ed-tech to forest conservation – Where it all began
Ustwo Pradhan, who calls himself a forest gardener, once worked at a call centre in Delhi in the early 2000s. After earning Rs 6000 a month, he moved on to the online gaming sector and worked there for about three years, drawing a salary of nearly Rs 45,000 a month. His last corporate stint came in the ed-tech space, where he earned his biggest paycheck so far, Rs 24 lakhs a month.
According to Pradhan, “I don’t think CTC or take-home defines a net worth.” He explained how there are many factors that impact it, right from where you live to how you live. Moreover, Pradhan, living a majority of his life in Delhi, released, “There are way too many options that are degenerative to your mind and body…I went into a degenerative spiral where the routine I followed was – live those five days I was working the other two to forget how you were working.”
However, it was sooner than later that he realised that the ‘corporate ladder’ he was comfortably climbing was “leaning against the wrong wall.” But he didn’t romanticise quitting or walking away, he cautioned, “You need to plan it out, especially the financial side of it.”
Building a passive income before quitting
“You need to do the boring stuff first,” remarked Pradhan, “for you to be able to get the interesting stuff first.”
Pradhan, when he first started, his relationship with money was ‘depressing’, and it all started with taxes. But signing up for a Unit Linked Insurance Plan (ULIP) is a hybrid financial product that combines life insurance coverage with investment opportunities in a single policy, which came as a wake-up call. “It made me realise that you have to be cognizant about not just how you earn money, but you make money earn for you,” he said.
It was later that he realised that from the money he earned, a certain section could go into mutual funds, the stock market, and other forms of investment. “I increased my assets and decreased my liabilities,” he summarised in a line.
However, after dropping out of college at the age of 18, he didn’t stop learning. Investing in his development, he took courses in mountaineering and permaculture, which even today, help him support his lifestyle in Darjeeling. After taking a 5-month break from work and trekking through the hills of India, he finally realised it was time.
Building a sustainable forest ecosystem in Darjeeling
Founder of a conservation-focused community, Tieedi, Ustow Pradhan, came back to Darjeeling with Rs 20 lakh in hand. Using his entire savings to build a dream, away from the exaggerated fascination with an alternate life, he sold his Delhi house and gathered investments from all his financial assets.
When he first set out to restore his family’s land, it was green on the surface. But underneath, there were years of garbage dumped for generations. “We have taken out 30,000 sacks of plastic,” revealed Pradhan, but there were many more challenges that came his way.
While the Rs 20 lakh corpus was nowhere near enough to achieve his mission, Pradhan shared that he decided to invite volunteers and invite guests into the tourist town.
Today, what cost him Rs 6-7 lakh to build a mud hut, they built under Rs 1 lakh. Hundreds of volunteers across the world visit the curated ecosystem in Darjeeling, focused on ‘taking it easy’. Initially, the set-up earned Rs 45,000 a month, but today, the earnings come to nearly Rs 5 lakh a month. While he did not reveal his salary, Pradhan said that it was about 15% of what he last earned, while his expenses and lifestyle demands had significantly reduced, living in Darjeeling.