Sarita and Mahesh were committed to building a just, prosperous, environmentally sustainable, secular society. In a brief period of four years, they worked to uplift forty village in the Fatehpur block of Gaya district in Bihar. They awakened and led people in reviving and renovating a traditional rainwater harvesting structure – a 45 km long water canal (called Hadhadwa pyne), its branch channels, and some 170 ponds (aahars) linked with it – completely based on people’s voluntary labour and cooperation. They tried to build a development model in a village called Sabdo, which was based on collective planning and decision-making, a village development committee to oversee the execution of the collective decisions; people’s cooperation; collective farming, animal husbandry and fisheries; total literacy; cent-per-cent enrolment of all boys and girls in the school-going age; alcohol prohibition; gender equality;cleanliness and sanitation by making the village open defecation free; using the bio-mass forfertiliser-making, general awareness about social evils; and skill and livelihoods related efforts particularly focused on women and young men. All the while, they relied on financial contributions from the local communities and the Zilla Parishad. Their work rubbed the vested interests entrenched in society and the power structures the wrong way, resulting in a premature and abrupt end to the promise and potential their work held.