Batik at VGS

Mandvi, Gujrat

The excitement of my project and the thrill of experiencing a world so different from mine awakes me at around 6:00AM every morning. Pradeep and I had decided to meet at 9:00AM. So with nothing to do after 8:00am, I decided I would go out looking for an internet café around my hotel. You know, make use of my time. The moment I stepped out of my room, I could feel eyes on me. After inquiring from the receptionist, I strolled down the street for a minute or so before noticing that there were no women on the street. I didn’t like that every single person I passed stared at me and decided that maybe it was not such a good idea for me to walk down the street by myself.

After Pradeep met me at my hotel, we proceeded to arrange for transportation to our destination - a town called Mandvi, which is about a 45-minute drive from Bhuj and on the coast of the Kutch pennisula. We arranged for a shared taxi - basically a humvee which in the states would typically seat 12, but in India crams 20 people. Good ‘ol Pradeep took care of me though and bought an entire row of 4 seats for the two of us. The cost per seat = $0.75.

The artisan group - Vivekananda Gramudyog Samaj (VGS) - is a different type of producer group than I was expecting b/c they are a sub-sect of another NGO (non-governmental organization or a non-profit) called VRTI (Vivekananda Research and Training Institute). VRTI is a rural development organization in India focused on water salinity issues in Kutch. For example they will conduct seminars to villagers informing them of various irrigation techniques (drip irrigation). Apparently there is a lot of ground water in Kutch, but the water is very salty which causes huge issues when considering that most people here are farmers.

I was a bit anxious about visiting VGS b/c I realized from my past visits that there is definitely a cutlural barrier. People need the time to feel comfortable with me. Also, while they’ve been prepped in advance about what I’ve come to do, they don’t exactly understand it.

Indians like to identify a stranger before proceeding with a conversation and like to ease into work. So, as soon as I entered the VGS office we commenced our relationship with a cup of tea. The first question they asked me is:

VGS: Where is your ‘native place.’
Priti: Tricky. What exactly are they trying to ask me? (in my head) I am born and raised in the US, but am Gujarati.
VGS: Where is your native place in Gujrat?
Priti: My grandparents migrated to Bombay from Tallaja.
VGS: Where is that?
Priti: What? They don’t know where a place within their own state is? Ok. (in my head) It is close to Bhavnagar.
VGS: O! Ok, where the mangos are? hahahha.
Priti: Uhhh. Yeah. Sure. (in my head)

After this intro, I slowly was able to inquire about the purpose and workings of VGS. VGS was created as an income generation project specializing in a Batik handicrafts. Batik, as I myself found out, refers to a process of dyeing and designing materials using wax. As you can see from the pictures below, the first step is for an artisan to “paint” on gray material with wax (pic 1). After that, the cloth is dipped in dye (pic 2), after which the wax (pic 2) is removed and the cloth is dried (pic 4). Though I could never survive in this workshop, generally the working conditions were decent. The indoor rooms lacked ventilation and were incredibly hot. Some of it is unavoidable due to the nature of working with wax. We inquired about this and were somewhat relieved to hear that they are renovating the workshop.

After viewing the process, we had lunch on the organization’s premise. I LOVE gujrati food. Though it is a bit oily, the vegetables are great and do a body good. The meal was accompanied by chas (buttermilk), salad, thick rotis (Indian tortillas), daal (lentil soup), and rice. Yummy and very filling. After lunch we were waiting a bit before starting work again and I began to feel very drowsy, almost like fainting. I thought to myself, I didn’t think I ate that much and realized that I was prolly reacting to the heat. Though we ate in a covered area with fans, it was still outside. I got to the point where I told VGS that I had to go back to my hotel to rest and would meet them the next day to finish. They insisted that I rest in their guest house and an hour later I emerged completely refreshed. The guest house was equipped with the fastest fan I’ve ever seen and yes! a western toilet!

VGS, as an NGO, is one of the most sophisticated producer groups I had visited. So I took for granted what value-add I would be able to provide. Before leaving Bombay, I had determined that while I was collecting data for my fair trade research, I wanted to leave the producer groups with something as well. So, as a self proclaimed excel queen, I created an excel-based template that presents cost and profitability information by product.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted and had only collected data on 3 products. After the third item, my VGS buddies got very excited. Because while they keep their accounts, even using a computer, they had never analyzed their costing and profitability structure on a per item basis. It was gratifying to know that I could offer them something.