As Sarfaroshi Foundation’s Chief Strategic Officer, Ashvani is the lynch-pin connecting all of our villages, breathing life and colour into the movement. The most attractive aspect of Ashvani-the-activist is how consumed he is by the need to wipe away people’s pain. This singular emotional tic drew him to social work at a very young age. From ferrying the sick and infirm to hospitals to unionising auto-rickshaw drivers, he has done it all. On most days, he is at it like a man possessed, from dawn to dusk. Be it a police case in which someone is unduly entangled or simply lending a ear to someone in need, Ashvani is the kind of empath people rarely encounter. And when he’s not caught up in this mad swirl, Ashvani is equally compulsively a fan of the singer Atif Aslam’s, whose songs he happily belts out, full-throated, in the after-hours.