The concept of pricing products is an alien one for me and my partner, Soko though she will die before she will admit it. "We are Punjabis, business comes naturally to us", she fervently insists everytime I begin a conversation about how we should really consider outside help with pricing and selling. But believe me on behalf of both of us, we are truly bad.
But we make good art. And in the latest addition to products we paint are jute bags. In Mumbai recently, Soko and I went to the Chembur market and found a vendor selling these pretty jute bags of pure white. I fell in love with them instantly and I swear to God I do not joke when I say that they were screaming out to me to paint on them. It is true.
So I picked up one and began painting on it. Now finished, the bag has a couple of paintings from a Facebook group called "A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World" that deals with women's rights. As as Dumbledore had said, "In my not-so-humble opinion", the bag looks absolutely fantastic!
Now again came forth the question of pricing it. Our staunch principle has always been to keep our products very affordable. We don't want to be as low-end as we possibly can. So during the days that we were discussing the pricing bit, one of the things that I kept stumbling upon- whether in the newspapers or in discussions among people that I have an unforgivable habit of listening into- was minimum wages.
The thing that I have observed about minimum wages is that people seem to think this established mark on money to be paid for a job is "good enough" for the worker. When that is not the case. Not at least to me. This is the MINIMUM amount and the money we pay to our skilled or unskilled and all other categories of workers must always be more than minimum if we can help it. Sadly, that is not the case.
Then there was obviously the recent controversy over the poverty line definition by the Planning Commission that is also obviously concerned with wages. Here, I saw a poster somebody had shared on Facebook that said politicians should be put on minimum wages so that they understand the issues they formulate policies on, better. And that did make sense. How many us really know about minimum wages? I know I don't. Not as much as I should know, at least. And the irony is that while we will haggle endlessly with our sabzi-wala or the rickshaw-puller for 5 rupees, we will not even dream of haggling at the fancy brand-stores that sell things with shamelessly-high profit margins.
So I decided we will work on minimum wages too. I check the Uttarakhand minimum wages chart (available here) and found "printing of cloth" as the nearest job to what I do. So the semi-skilled worker that I am will get Rs. 167 per day. Now I took two days to paint the bag but more intricate work may take 2.5 days, though never more than that.
Ergo, depending on the number of days taken to paint the bag, the labour charges for the work will be:
167X2= 334 or 167X2.5= 418
Add the price of the bag (about rupees 80) and you will get your final price of the bag. We will also include some information about Minimum Wages and other uncomfortable stuff in one panel of the bag, besides the things that you want on it.
Here's to living without money! :)
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Can you and I collide?
I have for a while now not been painting new posters and designs. It is great fun and a very satisfying experience but it is not adding to the larger picture and I have begun to realize that there is better use that the little creativity I have, can be put to.
It is funny how the affluent have evolved so admirably into people who can choose to not look at something. Sometimes we not look at things and people our whole lives. Garbage collectors are one of the invisible groups of people in our society. I have been reading this incredible book "We are poor but so many" by SEWA Founder Ela R. Bhatt and what astonishes me is not the things that she has revealed about the poor and downtrodden folks but the fact that I know about all of this. I have known about all of this maybe in a subconscious dimension of the brain and yet it did not surface until very recently. That is how good we are at choosing to not see what is very apparent and right there before us. It is truly disturbing.
I believe that the group of people that need most help is us, the affluent or the "middle class" or any one of the numerous tags attached to people with some assets, some financial security and therefore have some social standing too. Nobody is more limited in perspective and horizons than we are.
Those lucky few who have had the opportunity to take of the tinted glasses and see the reality soon realize that it is people who are first exploited and then blamed for their situation are actually the brilliant ones. They survive and thrive in circumstances that are beyond the earlier-mentioned limited vision and perspective of people enslaved by material comforts.
This is not rant. At least I am not throwing things around as I type.
Now the one thing that I have noticed is that all efforts towards providing opportunities to the impoverished do not involve an element that seems important to me- recognition of the downtrodden as people and above that, as people with dignity. The middle-class man only sees social workers or social entrepreneurs as people creating trouble by meddling with established structures and systems. Sometimes, we are the instigators of "strange ideas" in the "heads of people who deserve to be where they are". While I was working with the NGO that provided education to street children, I found that people were more comfortable with the idea of a foreign volunteer interacting with the street kids (firangis are apparently strange people who do things like that) than my sitting with them.
Similarly, I have read about some efforts to sensitize affluent people towards the realities of the exploited and yet I feel it is restricted, in that it does not bring about a collision of the two groups. I don't mean collision in the sense of war but in the sense of two forces coming together. What I am trying to put forth (and doing a really bad job at it, I think) is why should our efforts towards an equitable society be so divided into water-tight compartments? Efforts for poor and efforts for the to-be-sensitized affluent.
I realize that this will sound incredibly naive but I am wondering should there not be more work towards making sure that our invisible groups are actually seen and heard by those so adept at looking right through them?
I am working on the plan of a social enterprise on waste management and recycling, and has the added element of a subscription-based service that provides shopping bags of cloth and jute to shoppers outside main markets of Dehradun so that the use of polythene can be effectively banned.
A hundred different targets with the same arrow, I sometimes feel but you won't know unless you try, eh?
Now one of the things that I want to really work at is having the groups of affluent and impoverished folks interact more. Here is an idea: instead of the consumer being the king and blah blah blah, how about developing a service/enterprise that is so sought-after either in terms of brand-value or the use of the service itself that people are bound to accept the conditions we attach with it?
As a very petty example indeed, I recall watching a program on the Discovery TLC channel where this very highly-rated chef served some of his renowned delicacies but had a list of Do's and Dont's that he had put on every table and the customers were required to follow these or they could just as well leave. For example, you could not ask for more salt! Yah!
Now when I do set up this business, the one rule I know I will absolutely-religiously follow is that you CANNOT be rude to any member of my business enterprise. The same rule of course applies to the employees but also really strictly to the customer. 'We do not accept rude customers'is what our advertisements and billboards will read!
Whether these thoughts are naive and only good enough to be battered with a bludgeon, is something we will learn in time. Until then, we are free to envision!
It is funny how the affluent have evolved so admirably into people who can choose to not look at something. Sometimes we not look at things and people our whole lives. Garbage collectors are one of the invisible groups of people in our society. I have been reading this incredible book "We are poor but so many" by SEWA Founder Ela R. Bhatt and what astonishes me is not the things that she has revealed about the poor and downtrodden folks but the fact that I know about all of this. I have known about all of this maybe in a subconscious dimension of the brain and yet it did not surface until very recently. That is how good we are at choosing to not see what is very apparent and right there before us. It is truly disturbing.
I believe that the group of people that need most help is us, the affluent or the "middle class" or any one of the numerous tags attached to people with some assets, some financial security and therefore have some social standing too. Nobody is more limited in perspective and horizons than we are.
Those lucky few who have had the opportunity to take of the tinted glasses and see the reality soon realize that it is people who are first exploited and then blamed for their situation are actually the brilliant ones. They survive and thrive in circumstances that are beyond the earlier-mentioned limited vision and perspective of people enslaved by material comforts.
This is not rant. At least I am not throwing things around as I type.
Now the one thing that I have noticed is that all efforts towards providing opportunities to the impoverished do not involve an element that seems important to me- recognition of the downtrodden as people and above that, as people with dignity. The middle-class man only sees social workers or social entrepreneurs as people creating trouble by meddling with established structures and systems. Sometimes, we are the instigators of "strange ideas" in the "heads of people who deserve to be where they are". While I was working with the NGO that provided education to street children, I found that people were more comfortable with the idea of a foreign volunteer interacting with the street kids (firangis are apparently strange people who do things like that) than my sitting with them.
Similarly, I have read about some efforts to sensitize affluent people towards the realities of the exploited and yet I feel it is restricted, in that it does not bring about a collision of the two groups. I don't mean collision in the sense of war but in the sense of two forces coming together. What I am trying to put forth (and doing a really bad job at it, I think) is why should our efforts towards an equitable society be so divided into water-tight compartments? Efforts for poor and efforts for the to-be-sensitized affluent.
I realize that this will sound incredibly naive but I am wondering should there not be more work towards making sure that our invisible groups are actually seen and heard by those so adept at looking right through them?
I am working on the plan of a social enterprise on waste management and recycling, and has the added element of a subscription-based service that provides shopping bags of cloth and jute to shoppers outside main markets of Dehradun so that the use of polythene can be effectively banned.
A hundred different targets with the same arrow, I sometimes feel but you won't know unless you try, eh?
Now one of the things that I want to really work at is having the groups of affluent and impoverished folks interact more. Here is an idea: instead of the consumer being the king and blah blah blah, how about developing a service/enterprise that is so sought-after either in terms of brand-value or the use of the service itself that people are bound to accept the conditions we attach with it?
As a very petty example indeed, I recall watching a program on the Discovery TLC channel where this very highly-rated chef served some of his renowned delicacies but had a list of Do's and Dont's that he had put on every table and the customers were required to follow these or they could just as well leave. For example, you could not ask for more salt! Yah!
Now when I do set up this business, the one rule I know I will absolutely-religiously follow is that you CANNOT be rude to any member of my business enterprise. The same rule of course applies to the employees but also really strictly to the customer. 'We do not accept rude customers'is what our advertisements and billboards will read!
Whether these thoughts are naive and only good enough to be battered with a bludgeon, is something we will learn in time. Until then, we are free to envision!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Inspired from Reuse Connection!
For the last two years now, I have been subscribed to and therefore been reading about wonderful art from recycled material that is showcased on the page Reuse Connection. It is incredibly inspiring and has had me, since many months collecting cardboard boxes, paper scraps, gift-wrapping paper and most importantly, my used insulin vials. I proudly share that I have a whole box full of those pretty glass vials that I cannot wait to work on.
So, the first project that I began work on was making a lamp shade out of a KFC bucket.
Eventually, however I scrapped the idea of the lamp shade because it needed a few fixtures that I was just in no mood of spending time and money on. Instead, I got really cheap beads from the market and the erstwhile lamp-shade now hangs prettily in my room like this:
Yesterday, I shared this picture on A Little Part of Me's Facebook page and was very happy to see the positive feedback. Encouraged by the 'Likes', I am now sharing another "reuse" project.
Kamla Nagar market in New Delhi's famous north campus has these road-side vendors who sell really cool and inexpensive badges. Beatles, I love Tibet, Love, Che Guevara- you name it, they have it. I had bought a few of these the last time I was in Kamla Nagar market and had been wondering what to do with them.
A really nice idea is to pin these badges on all sides of a cardboard box. There can, obviously be any number of creative ways to do it. I used old wrapping paper and covered the box in different styles and colours of the paper on all sides. Then I added golden beads to the string from which the box hangs and finally attached the badges on various sides. I have been unable to post pictures here for some reason after the one above, so I am sharing the link to our Facebook page, where I have uploaded these pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.282792081779815.69880.220154094710281&type=1
So, the first project that I began work on was making a lamp shade out of a KFC bucket.
Eventually, however I scrapped the idea of the lamp shade because it needed a few fixtures that I was just in no mood of spending time and money on. Instead, I got really cheap beads from the market and the erstwhile lamp-shade now hangs prettily in my room like this:
Yesterday, I shared this picture on A Little Part of Me's Facebook page and was very happy to see the positive feedback. Encouraged by the 'Likes', I am now sharing another "reuse" project.
Kamla Nagar market in New Delhi's famous north campus has these road-side vendors who sell really cool and inexpensive badges. Beatles, I love Tibet, Love, Che Guevara- you name it, they have it. I had bought a few of these the last time I was in Kamla Nagar market and had been wondering what to do with them.
A really nice idea is to pin these badges on all sides of a cardboard box. There can, obviously be any number of creative ways to do it. I used old wrapping paper and covered the box in different styles and colours of the paper on all sides. Then I added golden beads to the string from which the box hangs and finally attached the badges on various sides. I have been unable to post pictures here for some reason after the one above, so I am sharing the link to our Facebook page, where I have uploaded these pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.282792081779815.69880.220154094710281&type=1
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