Hi, I’m Grishma Shitole, the heart and hands behind GladioLife.
I started GladioLife when I was honestly just a teenager who loved nature more than anything else. There was no big team, no formal strategy, and definitely no blueprint. Just a quiet, stubborn urge to do something, anything, that made people feel closer to the world outside their windows.
It began with the little things:
Posting about lesser-known species, talking about laser conservation, making a few t-shirts with the GladioLife name, and giving them away in Pench National Park during a 2023 visit.
One of our very first efforts was about sparrows. They were disappearing from Pune, and it broke my heart. So I started trying to find them again, to feed them, observe them, bring them back in whatever way I could.
I even began selling plants. Every single one felt like passing on a small piece of the Earth a reminder that nature isn’t separate from us, it’s with us, in our hands, every day.
But then school happened.
Boards, pressure, routines life got loud. And GladioLife, for a while, fell silent.
Now, I’m coming back to it.
Not because I have more time or more resources but because I still believe in the same things I did at 15:
That one person can make a difference. That small acts of love for the planet can ripple outward. That we don’t need to be experts to care.
GladioLife is growing again, still solo, still sincere, and more grounded than ever.
This isn’t just a page or a project.
It’s a part of me.
And I hope, in some way, it becomes a part of you too.
Thank you for being here.
Let’s grow this little oasis, quietly, gently, and together.
— Grishma