Devika Bajaj is one of the nominees for The Restore Awards® that recognise and provide a platform to make mental health mainstream and those connected with it are celebrated on a global stage. Devika is the CEO and Founder of Daivik Moringa, she decided to leave the corporate world and start her own brand entirely based on moringa leaves. The Unhurry® team interviewed her, excerpts below:
What inspired you to begin your journey?
My belief in healing powers of Nature comes a lot from my upbringing in a household where my family members relied a lot less on synthetic medicines and even during small illnesses, encouraged us to let the healing happen naturally or with small. Natural remedies available at home. I also have been motivated to lead a disciplined
and a healthy lifestyle, getting up early, soaking in the morning sun and following the circadian rhythm. By God’s grace, my immunity levels have been good and I have had very less chances of consuming medicines as such. However, in my second pregnancy, when I got blood tests done, I was low on several vital vitamins like Calcium, D3, B12 etc. I had very low energy levels and was overweight. I was ofcourse put on supplements by my gynaecologist but with those supplements, I was also facing issues of constipation, acne etc. I was not very comfortable popping in so many pills on a daily basis.
It was then when I came across Moringa as a miracle herb, a powerhouse of nutrients that can help compensating for any deficiency in your body and I had to jump to experiment it on myself. I studied and researched about it extensively before deciding to consume it. I put my supplements on hold and had homemade Moringa powder on
a daily basis. In a matter of 4-6 months, I saw tremendous results in my skin and hair quality getting better. I lost weight with no muscle or water loss. When I got my blood test done in the next 6 months, all my parameters of vitamin deficiencies had improved drastically and the most miraculous change that I noticed was the improvement of my eye power. I was intrigued and I did more research in collaboration with agriculturalists and nutritionists and got soil culture and other laboratory reports done to the conclusion that Moringa indeed is full of all essential nutrients and vitamins. Viola! I rediscovered the natural alternative to synthetic supplements and I was inspired to share this knowledge and information with people at large who might be suffering with issues like mine and were looking for natural and preventive alternatives.
I also concluded that not all Moringa is same. The efficacy of the produce depends a lot on the variety of seeds, soil nutrients and the process of drying the leaves and hence nutritional composition of our Moringa powder was almost 3 times more than any other variety available in the market.
And this is how my Journey of healing people through the products of Daivik Moringa began and with people’s tremendous feedback, I realized what really drives me is bringing true health and happiness in people’s lives.
What were the difficulties you faced on your way?
- Starting out as a Woman Entrepreneur in a patriarchial business family in a completely different product line, and convincing the family about it was itself a challenge. I took baby steps to increase the product line.
- Also as a mother of two young kids, my daughter that time being 5 years old and my son 1.5 years old, I was literally growing up another new born. It needed a lot of passion, conviction, vision and willpower to work on it. Now if I think of it, it is literally hard for myself to imagine that how did I do it. Balancing work and family and starting everything from scratch, was a huge challenge.
- The onset of Covid was another battle with kids being at home throughout and I had to conceptualise everything from home, was a big difficulty that I faced that time.
Could you mention 5 ways in which you are impacting or giving out to the community.
- I feel extremely humbled to mention that through Daivik Moringa Products, I have been instrumental in fostering healing from inside out. It gives me immense satisfaction when people give wonderful feedback of their healing journey in several health and topical ailments without using any medicines like in hairfall, alopecia, dandruff, acne, eczema or diabetes, arthritis , Blood Pressure, Post Covid fatigue, Lactation, Vitamin deficiencies, Hormonal Imbalances, Weight Management, Hair fall issues, Premature greying of hair to name a few.
- We have planted about 2000 trees and we keep doing intermittent campaigns of planting a tree on every order received.
- A part of our profits every year goes in giving free nutrition in the form of Moringa powder to orphanages and underprivileged people in the asylums/villages.
- I am generating employment at a small level and by focussing majorly on the women workforce, I am advocating women empowerment.
- I am also educating the farmer workforce on use of organic manure so that they avoid usng pesticides in their crops and other produce too. I feel if I am able to be an inspiration to even one girl or one student who wishes to be an entreprenuer, my jorney will be successful.
Today when you look back, is there anything you would have done differently
I started in a very unstructured format as I was not really sure of making a venture out of my sheer passion of bringing health in society.
I would have done that differently by planning an infrastructure and collating the important data/statistics of customers since inception, which I am doing now.
What is the message you would like to give to people out there who want to walk in your shoes in impacting the health of others?
Be authentic and genuinely have the passion of making a difference in people’s lives. Also find a gap in the market and capitalize on bridging that gap.
Mental health to you is…
Mental health to me is feeling love and being true to oneself irrespective of what others think of you. When one stops bothering about pleasing others and justifying oneself, true mental health is achieved. Good Mental health is simply no strings attached.
Cover image courtesy: Youtube
For more such articles and content on health & wellness, don’t forget to follow us!