Paalaguttapalle
Bags
Paalaguttapalli (Dalitwada) ,
Pakala Mandalam, Chittoor Dt, AP 517152.
The story of PaalaGuttaPalle, of
the women of PaalaGuttaPalle, and of
PaalaGuttaPalleBags, is a remarkable story. It shows the capability of the rural community to take
on production responsibilities when it is given the opportunity. It shows the
capability, the perseverance and the quality consciousness that a community of landless agricultural
labourers in a remote village can have. It showcases the ability that has
established an enterprise that has won accolades from all over India and
abroad.
This is a journey made by the
women on their own strength. With neither NGOs or State supporting them in any
way.
This is the journey of the women
of the village, and theirs alone. Built on their own organization skills, their
own financial contributions to build up their capital. Though some of us as friends have walked with
them in searching for orders, and making some connections with urban centres
for them, towards sourcing fabric and seeking
some learnings like screen printing.
And in this story of how a
village of landless agricultural labourers in the face of a breaking down
economy were able to retrain themselves and come up to deliver world class
products, is the story of the possibilities of villages and of their strength
and abilities.
And how and where we, as a
country, need to step in to enable that.
The Story, and the beginnings.
Paalaguttapalle (Dalitwada) has
faced recurrent droughts over the last years, and agriculture has slowed down
and there is large scale underemployment. Livelihood options became critical.
The story began there.
We, myself Aparna and my husband
Nagesh, moved to the village in 1995 to live and work there on various local
issues - agriculture, organic farming, education, ayurveda, livihoods, living as
one of the community, working with them. Currently erosion of livelihoods is the biggest
challenge.
One evening in March 2016, we women
were all sitting and talking at the village temple courtyard, worried about the
lack of work. Two of the women knew stitching. We thought we could try to start
there. Those were the beginnings
Annapurna, Rani, Lakshmikantha
and Anitha were the initial team. The women rose to the situation, learnt stitching
from one another, procured machines with their own resources. It started with
four women that day.
It all began with a small order
of 100 bags from a friend for his shop. Then another friend who wanted to
support the women decided that he would
buy bags regularly, and distribute them free to the local shops to cut plastic
use. That sustained the beginning months.
Their impeccable quality took
them further. And more and more orders started coming. They started kalamkari appliqué from a picture they saw.
Boutiques started ordering their bags for their sarees. Small steady orders were worked out.
The women realized that they
needed to learn screen printing. Many customers
wanted their logos printed. That training was too expensive for them to afford,
but another friend who had connected on FB, reached out and offered free
training in his shop. Vigneshwaran
Karthikeyan, a young IT professional, who
also had connected over FB and offered to go with them as they knew only Telugu and this was in
Chennai. He learnt with them and helped to set this up in the village. Given
the remoteness of the village, the difficulty is accessing anything at short
notice, given the undependable current, every step was a challenge. But with
their characteristic persistence and patience they surmounted all hurdles, with
Vignesh’s unflagging help.
And with screen printing skill
mastered, orders started coming in steadily. A large order of 1500 bags from
the Organic World Congress came in Nov 2017 with a very short deadline. They
met it working day and night. And then they and others understood that they
would meet any commitment with assured quality.
Another friend Arun Kombai
connected on FB on hearing of them, and he offered his design skills. With his
amazing designs, the orders grew rapidly.
Lavanya also connected through
Vignesh and has been friend and companion to the team, travelling with them to
exhibitions and seminars, to Goa, to
Tanuku and elsewhere. She has also been
behind making the website and managing it for them.
So Vignesh, Arun Kombai, Lavanya
and myself were the support staff of the team, helping them in our spare time.
Their skill also reached a level
where they were able to make any model any customer wanted. Their quality was
impeccable.
Then one day in June 2018 they
fashioned the now famous compartment bags out of canvas. Sturdy, beautiful bags
designed from a picture they saw. And when I posted their bag on FB orders came
flooding … in hundreds and spanning thousands. The Hindu covered them. The Indian
Express. Eenaadu, Sakshi.
PaalaGuttaPalleBags was now here
to stay.
Orders grew, the group grew,
taking in more women, and helping them, and teaching them. From the initial
four, to six, to nine. Today there are Annapurna, Anitha, Rani, Lakshmikantha,
Roopa, Buji, Nirmala, Ramila and Nirmala. More women seek to join as orders
grow.
The bags now go to every part of
India, and also to USA, Dubai, Hong Kong, Canada, UK. Carrying with them some
village air, and some village stories. And promises of joys to producer and
consumer.
The village culture becomes the
bag culture.
When I tell Rani that the quality
is uniformly appreciated, she tells me, "That is what we need. Money is
secondary."
Whenever they get messages of
happy customers they are extremely happy. And whenever there is the rare
mistake, they want to replace the bags, and try hard to make systems to avoid
that the next time.
Members of a small community have
always had a close bond between producer and customer. And to seek the
satisfaction and happiness of the customer is natural. And that village ethic
is part and parcel of this business which has grown beyond all borders of state
and country now.
And it is that personal integrity and effort that customers sense in the bags, that has made every customer become part of the journey. And each of them is a brand ambassador. And a friend. And a co traveler. Taking the story and the bags far and wide.
Many customers have made their friendships with the women personal and deep. Many have sent them gifts, including sarees, cementing a relationship based on mutual regard and affection.
The enterprise has built up a
bridge, a conversation, a narrative, may questions. Far beyond just a
business….
Community
The women are from a village and
their relationships with each other is deep rooted. And so the group is a well
knit community where each woman tries to take the others along. Where one
another’s problems are understood, and adapted to, and where the good of all
comes ahead of personal wellbeing.
Once when I had tried to insist
that instead of sharing the bags equally, they work on effectiveness, and each
does as many as she could do, they simply did not follow that suggestion. Later they explained to me, “When
the time to share the money comes, the ones who managed fewer bags look so sad,
that its not correct. We will share work evenly, and help the slower ones. You
don’t worry. The work will be done to satisfaction.” They have delivered on
their commitment.
When Kala had an accident and
head injury, for months they helped her, doing her bags, repairing her badly
stitched bags, in collective effort.
And yet in a
production process, systems are needed, and they effectively walk that
tightrope, drawing the fine line between friendships and adjustments on one
hand, and discipline and answerability to the collective on the other.
As Rama of Umbara who is guiding
them in readymade blouse making says, “The quality of
studentship in them and the willingness to learn is uncorrupted by life
situations, language barrier, physical tiredness or attitude issues.
They are single focused and completely straightforward.They exude the kind of teamwork that large organisations envy.”
They are single focused and completely straightforward.They exude the kind of teamwork that large organisations envy.”
The journey
beyond the village
Their first exhibition
trip was to Goa in Feb 2018 when a friend Amitava Bhattacharya met on FB invited
them to have a stall there. This was their first time away from Telugu speaking
spaces, and a week was spent there confidently, happily.
This was
followed by other exhibitions in Buva House Chennai, in DakshinChitra.
In Devc 2018
they went on stage to collect the prestigious Aval Vikatan award.
In Feb 2019 they went for a two day UGC Sponsored National Level Workshop on "Role of Women
Entrepreneurs in Economic Development of India”. The university had called me
and asked me to come as a resource person. I explained to her that I was not
the person they needed. That they needed to hear the women who have actually
got the enterprise off the ground flying.I gave the phone to Anita who was
there. The principal cordially invited her.
The women went, and spoke before
an audience of 1000, with confidence and clarity and with a power that comes
when people who have lived through those roads speak.
Expansion
Now they have also got into
making readymade blouses as a friend and wellwisher, Rama of the famous Umbara
enterprise, Bangalore offered to help them. They went to
Bangalore in Oct 2019 to learn from her, by now being confident enough to go to
a different state on their own. And after returning they are with persistence
trying to iron out the doubts and problems that get multiplied manifold when
one is in a remote village.
They have also been making
pickles, homemade, without preservatives, and using local recipies. Delicious
pickles that are sold online.
They have been processing amla
and tamarind and selling to organic shops in Chennai.
Challenges
Working from a remote village has
meant many challenges. When the motor breaks down. they need to take it to
Tirupathi for repairs, as there is no place closer. The auto fare up and down
crosses 1500/-, and one trip puts paid to all their earnings. The bus stop is 4
km away, and to take the food pedal meachine there is hard, and also the bus
driver usually does not oblige to loading it.
To parcel the bags means a trip
to Pakala which would again entail an auto for 400/-. The post office, a small
branch, sometimes turns them back saying that they are overloaded. that would
mean expense and a wasted day for them.
Every cost gets multiplied many
times when one is in a remote village. The cloth has to come by lorry to
Pakala, and then a van has to be organized to get it to this remote village.
Every trip for posting means overheads
of travelling.
Today
The women are now confident. When media come, they now handle them on
their own with confidence and clarity and warmth and honesty.
As Annapurna says that they have
never been to a post office, or a courier office, or the lorry godown before.
Step by step they have figured their way through all these. From living in a
remote village they have now crossed state barriers. They have friends across
states and countries, and the gifts they get from them is an affirmation of
worth and value, far beyond the sarees themselves.
They are handling the family expenses
in these times of drought, and the men in their homes respect their work and
give them full support.
This is a mode of home based work
that gives them freedom and space to attend to other commitments, while also
giving the best to their business.
The State and civil society and
their role
The State needs to protect
markets for small scale enterprises. Despite the best efforts of the women, and
despite the fact that their quality is impeccable, they are hit by the mass
produced bags which are of lower quality, and far lower cost. This is the
eternal struggle of machine made versus handmade.
When the plastic ban movement
started across different states, we at PaalaGuttaPalle were contacted for
articles and comments. The main point we reiterated was that along with plastic
bag ban, the state should reserve cloth bag production for small scale rural
units. But that was not done. And seeing the market bigger players entered who
had cost advantages. Garment manufacturers, stitched together the cut bits of
fabric in their factory and produced bags at virtually no cost to them.
Civil society needs to understand
the stories behind what they purchase and use. And make sure that their choices
support livelihoods. In these times of eroding livelihoods.
Media
NEWS MINUTE VIDEO https://www.facebook.com/notes/aparna-krishnan/paalaguttapalle-bags/1504317772960855/
You Tube Coverage II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k41eS85fVSE&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0bY8XJ-wldtur0eD_zbHnM2Z4vh8mKPiXwEaAeLcQW9ZujQWJTRMSef2w
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HINDU
ONLINE https://www.facebook.com/thehindu/posts/1864659983627996
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INDIAN
EXPRESS
http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/2018/aug/14/making-a-differenceone-bag-at-a-time-1857338.html
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PIONEER
https://pikdo.net/p/paalaguttapalle_bags/2089997514657030345_10132532553
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HANS
1
http://epaper.thehansindia.com/1804070/HYDERABAD-MAIN/HYDERABAD-MAIN#page/10/2
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AVAL
https://youtu.be/hGU5AiWZdFw?t=1231.
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NEWS
MINUTE VIDEO https://www.facebook.com/TheNewsMinute/videos/2135101033220358/
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EENAADU
http://www.eenadu.net/vasundhara/vasundhara-inner.aspx?featurefullstory=30124&fbclid=IwAR29bakX8UTJPqp9pr2A0C6b3aS_W6ieJnky9M9oI1En5S48QotF4Rgyl10
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VELUGU
v6 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2679646342094653&set=a.562854157107226&type=3&theater
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AVAL
https://www.vikatan.com/avalvikatan/2018-dec-25/aval-awards/146650-aval-vikatan-awards-2018.html
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LOGICAL INDIAN https://www.facebook.com/logical.indian/posts/1925276917602018?__xts__[0]=68.ARClAvRXpWMTd_uE2whD2NhVvAo8Lr5tjFn_CPlReoNFWOlYL7zVulHJeQO97gFYZvFKO8ihiEmbXVPQUF3_W-n3RzBhRrNFgNImMHC4xUcUMHtAWz_2GB5Ttr8aFojwtV8o3SLThpAtSykWt22lD0mvW5X8Ig9hib240k5vNs83leOVDlsw-M0sI4zN27m8OUm15nP06gx9AILS6IMYqeBL34davesJxXYlCBHpkEdy--0e6a6FhQ0g33qbohN9e1kNarnRkZPF5RjqPpNU8yaFR0KoFxHEPbERALJD2sEZyCKKuu5DV9NFUvIuUpg33Pg5AnlOeKDvkdhL0PtOJeySYg&__tn__=-R
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LOGICAL INDIAN https://effortsforgood.org/social-good-businesses/social-good-businesses-2018/?fbclid=IwAR3nkwfdj86Mqah8Kv2LPjIyAYZgAEgcNnZMtJ5Jk-IEms2Jm3MUOrhWWzM
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YOUR
STORY
https://yourstory.com/socialstory/2019/02/once-dealing-with-drought-driven-unemployment-thes-4tsg2cc6x0?fbclid=IwAR3kquf7mq5nBPpLwJmYpbgIJHmg6mwlDWcC55KK6MH05xjOnoy_fBUs10A
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INTERSECTIONAL
FEMINISM https://feminisminindia.com/2019/07/08/dalit-women-paalaguttapalle/
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JUSTICE
NEWS https://www.justicenews.co.in/once-dealing-with-drought-driven-unemployment-these-paalaguttapalles-dalit-women-now-have-a-secure-future-in-the-bag/
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RED
ELEPHANT FOUNDATION
http://ahimsa.redelephantfoundation.org/2019/10/from-paalaguttapalle-with-love.html
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INTERSECTIONAL
FEMINISM
https://feminisminindia.com/2019/07/08/dalit-women-paalaguttapalle/
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