Keya Sarkar: Factory with a view

When I first arrived in Santiniketan a decade ago, setting up a business of handmade things was just a dream. Of course, the fact that Santiniketan is surrounded by villages where artisans are employed in various traditional crafts made the transition from dream to reality smooth.

Since I had no experience in design or craft, I had to learn pretty much everything by observation. It was by watching visiting weavers, dyers, embroiderers, leather workers, ironsmiths and wood carvers that I learnt how each craft was practised and about its economics.

I particularly remember my visit to leather factories (Santiniketan is known for leather crafting). Located in the small bylanes of Bolpur, the town next to Santiniketan, the factories were dark, dingy sheds reeking of leather and dye. These were crammed with young boys, who worked side by side on tables and used small iron hammers as tools.

When I decided to start my own leather unit, I picked a few of the boys whom I had watched working on my visits to these factories. I rented a nice airy two-room place for them to work. Since our weaving and embroidery production unit also grew, we decided it would be better if all of us were together. We were lucky enough to find a large space with a modest garden to house us all. The fact that the boys who worked in the leather unit found this more conducive to work compared to their traditional dingy work sheds was apparent from how clean they kept the space.

The boys were mainly Hindus, the girls mainly Muslims. In their exchange of ideas, food, customs and more, it felt we were producing far more than merely the products we were selling.

Recently, the man who heads the leather unit won a lottery. After he finished recounting how his body was shaking as he was collecting the money, I asked him what he planned to do with it. He looked at me triumphantly and said he had already put the money in a fixed deposit for his daughter.

I was glad that he had had the good sense to save money. But I had another thought. I told him that playing safe was one way of looking at life; the other could be to take a little risk with the windfall. I asked him whether he would consider spending a small portion to set up his own factory. Initially, marketing would be taken care of. He would be making things for us, as before - except now he would be his own boss. Later, he could work for others to enhance his income. As we sat and did the math, he realised how little he would actually have to invest.

Two weeks later, he truly surprised me. He said he had been thinking over what I had suggested and was convinced enough to have persuaded all his colleagues to follow him. And they had already found a place to set up the new factory.

It was at the beginning of the month that the leather unit moved out of our premises into their own factory. After giving them a few days to settle down, I made a trip to see their factory, which was about five kilometres away. I was completely unprepared for what I saw. They had rented a lovely house with large rooms, a long corridor and, most importantly, a large garden in front - it was similar to the workshop they had left behind. Thus, an entrepreneur was born who valued the environment where he would work. Of all the products I have designed, executed and sold in the last 10 years, this was the most satisfying.