My first lesson in what a story can unlock.

I wrote profiles for 200+ borrowers from across India, including weavers, tailors, artisans, and farmers, many from rural communities in the Northeast.

The people I wrote about were often seeking microloans of roughly ₹25,000–₹50,000 to purchase raw materials, increase production, or grow small businesses.

My job was deceptively simple: understand the person behind the application well enough that someone hundreds of kilometres away would care about their story.

Looking back, this was probably one of my earliest experiences of seeing how information, trust, and human context can change whether someone gets access to an opportunity.