The was a call from Eenaadu paper, the largest circulated Telugu newspaper. Just now. 10pm.
Asking for the story of the women of PaalaGuttaPalle.
The women are remarkable. The story they have crafted is more remrkable. And the more I discuss, the more I realize. The lessons there are here.
No NGO, no state. A group of women. Landless, assetless. Below poverty line.
Getting together. Learning tailoring, purchasing their own machines.
Braving the infinite hurdles that working from a remote village entails. From the challenges and overheads of getting the cloth. bales. Of stitching and screen printing in realities of random power outages. Of the distance to be traversed for each posting. With the nearest bus stop 4 km away.
Braving the infinite hurdles that working from a remote village entails. From the challenges and overheads of getting the cloth. bales. Of stitching and screen printing in realities of random power outages. Of the distance to be traversed for each posting. With the nearest bus stop 4 km away.
Learning screen printing. perfecting it. With Vigneshwaran Karthikeyan and Arun Kombai walking the mile with them.
With going to exhibitions in Goa. Tamil nadu. Supported by Lavanya Lakshmanan, Khatija Rahman.
Many customers turning friends, supporters. I also doing what I can from the sides. As a neighbour, a friend.
A testimony to the strength, capability, resilience of villages. To adapt and carve a new life in a breaking and broken economy.
With just that little bit of external guidance.
Which the Government needs to answer to.
To promise livlihoods in evey village. Cloth bags or Food Processing.
And stop industrial production, of all that villages can produce.
They have it in them. The villages. To deliver quality with responsibility.
Do we ? Those who craft policies. To enable it for them.
Roopa, "Madam, is it OK if we delay the next order a bit."
(Loud happy giggles from the back.)
"Why Roopa".
"We all want to go to the konda. To Tirumala. To offer our thanks to the God. Our business has been going on so well.
And today we have been covered in our Eenaadu paper. All our relatives are calling us up !."
Anitha, "We will stitch a small bag, and all of us will put money in it. And put it in the hundi !"
Lakshmikantha, "We can put our PaalaGuttaPalleBags logo !"
(Happy laughs from the background.)
Anitha, "We have kept wanting to there as a group. We wanted to plan with you, but its not happenning. So we thought we will just go now."
"Yes, get me Tirupathi ladoos !!", I said.
...
And then again I realize the cultural differance.
In the real India, God is remembered after every meaningful event. A simple genuine thanksgiving after every happiness. A simple real relationship between the gods and the people. A friendly relationship.
"Roopa, Kavitha akka told you to get her also Thirumala ladoos."
Kavitha is our friend, customer, co traveller. She got the team loverly sarees recently, and so its all a family.
"Of course we will madam. But how to send to her in UK ?"
"Lets see. But she said in tamash (jest) anyway'
Roopa, "Tamashni nijam cheyyali madam. Ede kada !" ("All that begins as jest has to be made real. Thats the point !").
With a happy laugh.
With a happy laugh.
They make my day. With simple sturdy cheerful wisdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment