Channapatna- From Ground Up

Channapatna is a town located in southern Karnataka along the Bangalore-Mysore highway. It is famous for its wooden toys & lacquer ware since the time of Tipu Sultan. I can go on & on describing the town & its wares, but I’ll leave that to Wikipedia.

We conducted a sort of a Baseline survey in the town. We spoke to various artisans & others involved at different levels of the toy manufacturing process. I found the questions we were expected to ask to be limiting our interaction. Never the less I’ll state the ground realities we stumbled upon.

The Business:

• Local Turning or Manual Lathe: doesn't require much finish and mechanisation. Can be seen in the bead making village of Neelasandra.
• Fine Turning or Machine Lathe: for export quality products. It is a difficult task which requires a very smooth finish and no black patches on the wood. Requires the use of machines. eg. napkin rings made in Kalanagar.
• Fixing & Painting: Involves assembling of pieces created on the lathe, colouring & varnishing them. Seen throughout town in small houses.
  
• Cutting: making parts that don't require turning. eg. parts for toy horses.

More than 80% of the town is involved in the toy making industry. The toys are mostly made of ivory wood (halle wood), coloured using coloured lacquer sticks & polished with leaves of the Thale palm. The colour given to the lacquer may be a vegetable based dye or a chemical dye. Vegetable dyes are safer. Other goods include furnishings made from teak & rubber wood & napkin rings.

The industry in Channapatna is a dying one. From 3000 artisans about 5 years ago today there are fewer than 2000 who practise the craft. Government organisations like Cauvery & NGO’s like Maya have taken various incentives to save the craft with average results.

Some of the causes for its stagnancy are:

• Most of the labourers are illiterate daily wage earners. They are satisfied as long as they can feed their families & have no ambitions of expanding their craft or profit.
• The artisans maybe content but they see bigger dreams for their children. The children would prefer settled jobs rather than daily wage ones which are highly unpredictable.
• There is always a sharp deflation of prices in this industry. Any new innovations are copied & inferior duplicates are sold at less than half the price of the originals, thus keeping prices down.
• The number of large scale orders for goods has reduced drastically. This is mainly because the quantity of production of local handmade toys is no match for foreign (eg. Chinese) machine made goods.
• The nature of the orders is another limiting factor. The deadlines for orders are unrealistic & so are the prices. At times when there are no orders production cannot be stopped as it is a daily wage industry leading to unnecessary pileups of goods.
• Regular power cuts are another major problem. The machine lathes cannot operate without electricity. This leaves the artisans idle.

Popatlal & Manju

We based our persona & scenario upon the Fortune Tellers we met outside Durga Parmeshwari Temple.

Here is a link to the colourful life of Popatlal & Manju.
http://rapidshare.com/files/259007180/astro.ppt

Data Visulization

For the visual mapping exercise I chose the fruit export business of Mr Vinay. In agriculture use of resources depending estimation of time available is crucial.
My visual map is roughly the 4th quadrant of a XY axis graph. The X-axis is depicted in the form of weather prevailing in that span of the year. The Y axis comprises of fruits that are grown in the plantation. Points are mapped on the graph to indicate the harvest season of each fruit.

Boosting a Business

The business I picked to enhance would have to be the Bhel guy. As u might have realised this guy wasn’t just innovative but also unique. But just being unique isn’t enough for a growing business.
Like I said I’ve already described the functioning of this gentleman’s business. As a designer or just a customer I’d provide these suggestions to improve it.
• Being a travelling van not all customers are familiar with it. An attractive name display board could add lots. While eating customers have to stand.
• Folding chairs could be carried & set up when the truck halts.
• A loud speaker to announce the arrival of the truck.
• Perhaps, gloves for the duo making the snacks.
• While at the truck I got partially drenched in the rain. Improved protection from rain for customers is a must.
• If he claims to have created 480 varieties of chat, I suggest he should patent them.
• The plates he uses are flimsy. I suggest a change.

The lives of a bunch of people, a elephant & a parrot.

The Elephant Man

On our way to Vidyaranyapura it struck us that we can visit the temple elephant & her Mahut. This is the elephant which is provided for by the Durga Parmeshwari temple trust. As we approached the shed we were greeted by three men, one of whom, Keshwan, was the Mahut. He introduced us to his elephant Sri Durga.
Keshwan was a middle aged man. He walks Sri Durga to the temple 3 mornings of a week. He is in the business of raising elephants for 7 years. This man originally from Tamil Nadu claims 3 generations of his family have been in this trade. He wouldn’t reveal his exact income to us but said he earned about 5000 rupees per month & also bonuses during temple festivals.
Sri Durga is 9 years old & very young in elephant terms. Keshwan claims a well looked after elephant can live up to 120 years. She consumes 200kgs of food every day & 80 litres of water. I observed the elephant to be fit & happy. The temple is also helped in caring for the elephant by one Mrs.Ganguly from CUPA.

The Fruit King

Later in the day we walked into the chikoo plantation hoping to find a person employed to maintain the fields & how they earn their living. When we walked up to a make-shift shop in the plantation to find such a person we ran into one, Mr. Vinay. He wasn’t a person we were looking for, he was much better, for Mr. Vinay happened to be the owner of the plantation.
Though the land belongs to the government it is leased out to individuals for plantation. Mr.Vinay has owned the plantation for about 6 years. He owns about 500acres of land in GKVK. His business is mainly of exporting fruits. Different fruits are exported depending on the season. The fruits grown include Chikoo, Mango (Malika, Arampali), Guava & Papaya. The fruit trees are mostly of a wild variety & thus require no watering. All plants grown are done so through organic means. No chemical fertilizers are required due to the fertility of the soil.
Before taking up this business Mr.Vinay , who has a degree, was into the chemical & networking business. He refused to reveal his profit to us but mentioned he was happy with the way things were going. He told us how a change in business is always a risk but one which payed off in his case. Before bidding him farewell be bought a kilogram of Malika Mangoes from his shop for Rs.30. Trust me they were fantastic.

The Pool Player

The next destination on our list was a swimming pool where the waste water is released into agricultural land. It is innovative, it is a business, but as we discovered it isn’t exactly a livelihood. The pool belongs to P.K Rajgopal who is the BJP MLA of the area. We met the pool manager Mr Ravi on our arrival. He enlightened us about the history of the pool. The pool was started 5 years ago. It was then meant for personal use but later converted to a public pool. The pool has a maximum depth of 6ft & can accommodate maximum 50 people at a time. It is open only on weekdays from 7am to 4pm. It is closed during the rains. A dip will cost you Rs.25 an hour. Summer is when the business is at its peak.
The waste water from the pool is drained into the adjacent plot. Here we observed maize was being grown. Seasonally raggi is also grown. These crops are used for fodder for livestock. It thus supplements the income of the workers.

The Chat Master

This I assume was our most successful meeting of the day. Every evening at about 4, near the public ground at Vidyaranyapura you will find the man fondly known as Motawala due to his girth. The man I’m talking about, real name Mr Sanath Kumar & his assistant are some of the most innovative chat makers I’ve come across. Mr Sanath’s claim to fame is his invention of 480 varieties of new chat dishes. When I asked him to tell me his favourite he refused to, saying that each one was like his child so how could he show favouritism.
He has been in the business of chat making for thirteen years. He started out as a wholesaler of bhel & other ‘mixture’. Due to mismanagement he had to abandon it & find a new avenue. He did so by making & selling chat on a handcart. As business progressed he added a couple of carts to his fleet. He soon sold the carts & got a Fiat Premier for business. Today he does business from a Piagio truck.
His day starts with the preparations of food items. When the items are ready he sets off in his truck. Vidyaranyapura is his favoured location as he enjoys a loyal fan following. He also caters for parties & prepares parcels. He wouldn’t reveal his exact income but said it was around Rs.20000 a month.

Astro Boy : The Fortune Teller

The astrologer we met was a fascinating character. Who wouldn’t be attracted to a man in a bright orange lungi & a parrot with a bunch of tarot cards. We didn’t actually speak to this man but observed him closely for an hour or so. He sits outside the Durga Parmeshwari temple from 10am to 6pm on Tuesdays, Fridays & Sundays.
A session cost Rs.10. The customer is told to ask a question of his choice, then as an answer the parrot in the cage picks a card & the astrologer defines it. For an additional Rs.10 he also reads palms. From our estimation he earns about Rs.200 a day. I couldn’t see much logic in his answers but they were creative none the less. His deck comprised of 12cards each symbolizing a different fate based on the question asked.

Our Fledgling Steps

The aim of the assignment as I figured it was to make the maximum money using the minimum possible capital. The key to this I figured was innovation.

The idea of using jackfruit as our produce didn’t take too much of deliberations. We knew where we could get it free where we would find customers. The only question was ‘What makes us different?’.

And here is the answer.

Arriving to a consensus our first task was obtaining the fruit. But as it turned out this wasn’t much of a task. We went to the designated plot, spoke to the people responsible & returned with a couple of fruits. The question now was what was our USP. We figured these were the pieces to our puzzle.

Chat Masala(1) ............Rs 10(ish) taken from home.

Glazed cherries(1) ........ Rs10

Disposable cups (50) ............Rs20

Honey ..................free(removed from local hive)

JackFruit(2) ...............free

We met the next morning At Gautams place in Vidyaranyapura @ 8am. Our task cutting open the fruits. As u may know this is no easy task. Here is us @ work.

The process involves gently slicing the fruit vertically, pulling it open & removing the edible pods.

Getting a cart was rather more complicated, we borrowed it from the owner assuring him it wasn’t for commercial profit but for a film shoot. Yeah! Yeah! We lied!!

So at about 10.40 we set of to the location, Durga Parmeshwari temple in Vidyaranyapura. Business wasn’t as fast as we expected, at times we got bored hawking our goods. We tended to pass our time by interacting other local hawkers. At about 12.10 we were forced to make a quick exit due to the presence of the cart owner. We had made about 60 rupees till that point. With our destination unknown we set out through the winding lanes.

At one street corner a couple of people from a shop approached us. They recommended us to others in their shop & also the neighboring one. Soon there was a sizable rush & every passer by stopped & took notice. We were kept so busy we lost track of sales. I personally got quiet jittery. In the commotion we didn’t have the opening to use the camera. By this point we had made about 240 rupees.

After this rush subsided we wandered from street to street. Sales had returned to their normal slow selves. At about 3.30 we decided to return home with a substantial sum of Rs 260 in our pockets.

Our rates were Rs. 1 per pod & Rs. 5 per plate comprised of 3 pods & our special ingredients.

In hindsight our profit was only marginal. The only real reason we made any profit was the fact that we got most raw materials for free. Our selling price would have been far too low had we brought the materials. But the low prices also prompted some to come back for seconds. For a steady business a rise in prices is a must. Also, we would need to find a steady source of fruits. The recipe was a hit though. If u ever eat it again, remember, you saw it first here.

Looking at us by the cart most people smelt a rat. They did enjoy our dish but kept asking us why we were doing this. We told them it was a business experiment. They weren’t convinced and kept asking what can we expect from you in the future and I guess now I ask the same question of myself.