Meet Our Founder

There are people who simply live through their times, and there are those who feel everything around them a little too deeply — every smile, every silence, every quiet suffering of another. Ranjit Das has always belonged to the latter kind.

Born in 1977 in Behala, Kolkata, Ranjit was the only child of his parents — a childhood that could have been solitary, but instead became expansive, filled with stories, colours, and imagination. He studied at Sahapur Harendranath Vidyapith and later completed his college education at New Alipore College. But even as a young boy, his real classroom was the world around him — the people, their struggles, their unspoken stories.

From an early age, Ranjit found himself drawn instinctively toward three things: words, images, and people. He grew up writing little stories, sketching what he saw, and observing life with the curiosity of someone who knew, even then, that he was meant to tell stories that mattered. What began as a childhood fascination soon became a lifelong calling.

His professional journey began early — in his adolescence itself — when most his age were still discovering who they wanted to be. Across the years, Ranjit immersed himself in literature, writing short stories and novels that carried the weight of real human emotion. In time, this passion for storytelling found a new home — the screen. He began writing screenplays, and what followed was a long and accomplished career as a scriptwriter for television serials, dramas, telefilms, and films. His words have given voice to countless characters, situations, and emotions across mediums — each one written with the same sincerity he brings to everything he does.

But somewhere beneath the writer and the storyteller, there has always lived something quieter, and perhaps more important — a deeply compassionate human being.

Since childhood, Ranjit has never been able to look away from suffering. The sight of a hungry child, an elderly person left uncared for, a family without warmth in winter — these moments stayed with him long after they passed. Whenever life gave him the smallest window of time or opportunity, he found ways to serve. Quiet acts of kindness, small gestures of humanity — long before they had a name or a structure, they had already become a part of who he was.

But as the years went by, a small voice within him kept growing louder: individual effort, however sincere, has its limits. To create real, lasting impact, compassion must be organised. It must be intentional. It must reach further than one person's hands can carry it.

It was this very conviction that gave birth to Shankha Foundation — not as a project, but as a purpose. Ranjit chose the name Shankha (the conch shell) deliberately — an instrument that, in Indian tradition, announces beginnings, invokes auspiciousness, and calls people together. In much the same way, he envisioned his foundation as a call — to humanity, to compassion, to collective service.

Inspired deeply by the philosophy of Swami Vivekananda — who taught that service to humankind is service to the divine — Ranjit built Shankha Foundation on a simple yet powerful belief: that uplifting another human being is the truest form of worship.

Today, under his quiet but resolute leadership, Shankha Foundation continues to grow — distributing food during crises, providing warmth through winters, enabling education for underprivileged students, organising blood donation camps, and ensuring access to healthcare and insurance for those who need it most. Yet for Ranjit, this is only the beginning. His vision extends far beyond — toward schools that nurture every child regardless of background, hospitals that heal without barriers, empowered farmers equipped with modern knowledge, and a home for children who have no one else to call family.

For Ranjit Das, storytelling and service have always shared the same root — the desire to be heard, to be seen, and to matter. Through his pen, he gave voice to fictional lives. Through Shankha Foundation, he continues to give dignity, hope, and opportunity to real ones.