Muhaimin Sheik

” I can eat rice but not money”- was the reply when someone had asked me, if you are well educated and a well-paid working professional why are you working in the agricultural field?

Money can be earned in many ways but food can come in only one way- that’s agriculture.

I was born and brought up in a small village in Pottagavayal, Ramanathapuram district, Tamilnadu. My family is partly dependent on agriculture. During my school and colleges times, my parents didn’t encourage me much to go into agriculture and asked me to focus only on my studies.

I have done my Bachelors’  in Engineering in Computer Science from Al-Ameen Engineering College, Erode  and currently working as a software engineer in Contus. I always wanted to go to Banglore and my dream was to get a job in the Silicon valley of India. So after my graduation, I went there in search of a job. I didn’t know anything about the city, so I stayed for four months with a friend.  I even worked as a salesperson in a supermarket for 1.5 months. I was working for 3-4 days a week and was getting Rs 450-500 per day which helped me to survive and in the remaining days, I used to prepare and appear for interviews. After 1.5 months I got a job in CaratLane as a Systems Administrator where my role was to solve system issues, do OS installations, RAM management in the computers, etc. Many software engineers were working in that company and I felt a little jealous seeing them work in those roles since I was also an engineer and I loved computer science, but I couldn’t get a job like them.

During that time I had joined a course of core PHP where I used attend class every morning from 6 to 9 and then do my job.After working for 1.5 years in that organization, I finally got the job in which I was interested, a software developer. Then with time, I switched many a times, but in 2020 the pandemic hit, my then company stopped our salaries. I did not have any other option but to leave the job and search for another company. I got a job in Chennai and was very much dedicated to my work. At the same time, I used to come  home every weekend and work in our farmland. That didn’t affect my performance at the company as a result of which, in one year I got a salary hike of nearly 70% which was the highest among all my colleagues over there. This can be seen as a proof that one can work hard on the weekdays and follow their passion over the weekends too, without impacting his/her performance. Working in the fields helped me relax my mind well. I do not discourage anyone to go to the gym, yoga, or doing other sports, but if you spend some time with nature, you’ll feel the calmness, the composure and serenity within your body and soul.

I moved back to my home in 2020, ever since then I’ve been working in the fields daily for a few hours on weekdays and spending the whole day in weekends.

Currently, I do all kinds of work starting from seeding to applying fertilizers , to cultivation and learning the science of agriculture. I’m not in favor of using chemicals for our food so I’m researching more on how we can do organic cultivation. Every day, 28 people dependent on farming die by suicide in India. And according to the latest NCRB report, people in the agriculture sector accounted for 7.4 percent of the total suicides in India which is a matter of high concern. I want everyone in our country to be involved in agriculture actively or passively.

We have 5 acres of land in total and it is like a child for us. During cultivation time, we hire some people to help us. I feel very much satisfied with the kind of work I’m doing presently. The 5 days coding+ 2 days Argi is what gets me going in life. I  would want to give a shout-out to everyone to come forward and help the farmers in every possible way they can. And we definitely can bring back the lost glory of agriculture and make people realize that it was and is the backbone of the economy and will always remain.

Total Work Experience: 5 years ( CaratLane, Connective Links Technology, Halsimplify Solutions, Milanity, Contus )