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I had heard about Shashwat organization, Anand Kapoor and Kusumtai for the last 25 years ever since I was a college student. I had heard and read that the couple had done a relentless, laborious task for the tribal people in Bhimashanker area and specifically who were affected by Dhimbhe dam.

I am studying in Std. 10th. My family belongs to the Katkari caste. I have 4 siblings. We lost our mother when we were very young and shortly afterwards our father too abandoned us. Shashwat Trust was a great support to us at that time and they enrolled us in the school situated at ‘Aghane’. Without their help we would have been nowhere. They took care of us as if we were their own children. Whenever I remembered my parents, the thought of Anandmama and Kusumtai would give me comfort.

It was in 1982 that I first came in contact with Mr. Anand Kapoor. As a journalist on my first assignment, I witnessed an agitation led by an aggressive Kusum Karnik along with Anand Kapoor. The protestors had halted the cavalcade of then Guardian Minister Anantrao Thopate and MP Ramkrishna More to demand appropriate market price for a medicinal seed “Hirda” which was found in abundance in the Ambegaon taluka and was a source of livelihood for the Adivasis inhabiting that region. Needless to say, the protest received due attention from the State Government.

I first met him in 1996 in Jabalpur, when the acting CM Digvijay Singh had given the responsibility of designing projects based on natural resources for the Bargi dam affected people to the members of Save Narmada social group. He had come to give technical advice and help to the social organization working on the upliftment of the people displaced and affected by Bargi dam project.