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"It
is a compelling story to come across of how
a man learnt to weave with two looms in his
compound in a small town in Rajasthan and
went ahead to build a country-wide network
of 40,000 artisans in 10 states to build
India’s largest hand-knotted carpet
company."
Starting from the scratch Mr. NK Chaudhary’s
grit and determination embarked on a mission
that would go on to reshape the Indian
carpet industry. In his late fifties, he
wakes up at 5 AM in the morning and starts
his day with all his targets chalked out. A
personification of simplicity, Mr. NK
Chaudhary is thoroughly dedicated to the
Indian hand-knotted rug weaving industry
with a mission to give it its rightful place
in the world. He wants the world to bestow
the benefit and recognition of this to its
apt owner, the Indian artisan.
For the welfare of artisans and those
indirectly linked with the rug weaving
industry, Mr. NK Chaudhary set up an NGO by
the name of Jaipur Rugs Foundation (JRF) in
2004 that is a voluntary, non-profit and
secular organization. JRF under the guidance
of him is working for the socio-economic
development of artisans. Through its
initiatives, thousands of artisans are
receiving skill enhancement training and
financial assistance for an independent and
prosperous future in rug weaving.
The looms are located in the yard of each
artisan’s house. Impressively, JRF’s quality
team can tell which square inch of the
carpet was made that week and on which loom
and at which artisan’s house. Each loom is
visited twice a week. A production progress
report is generated and sent to the
headquarters in Jaipur. The looms are in
some of the remotest areas of the country
like the Bhil tribal areas in Gujarat. Each
new carpet is a different story;
hand-knotted by a family, spanning over ten
months.
In Gujarat, Jaipur Rugs has artisans in 200
villages spread over 100 kilometers. In
1988, when Mr. NK Chaudhary first went to
Gujarat, it was a flood prone area with no
roads or telephones. There was no bank
either. But a Government scheme had provided
looms to tribal families. He had spotted a
wireless set in an exhibition in Ahmedabad
and got himself a radio license. He put in
15 fixed stations and bought 20 bikes and 2
jeeps to travel over rocky terrain. Mr. NK
Chaudhary’s employees checked for quality,
supplied raw material and made payments.
“Initially, I would go to an artisan’s house
and spend the night and return after 2 or 3
days,” recollects him.
The story goes all the way back to 1978. Mr.
NK Chaudhary, whose father ran a shoe shop,
gave up a job offer at a Life Insurance
Company, to get into the carpet business. He
learnt how to weave from a master artisan at
a Government training school in Churu, a
small town in Rajasthan. Soon the business
expanded but they were contractors for an
exporter from Jaipur. “I learnt the process
and started trussing my abilities. I am
transported to a different world when I am
involved in with artisans. We just kept
expanding to several villages in Rajasthan
and eventually to neighboring Gujarat,” he
says. He has spent a large part of his life
building the network of artisans and
improving rug quality while his brother
looked after the marketing part. Eventually,
they developed an export business together.
For 33 years, Mr. NK Chaudhary has been
honing the art of dyeing, obtaining the
right quality yarn, removing weaving defects
and eliminating washing problems. “In each
case, we got to the deep root cause of the
problem and obtained the solution,” he
points out. In 1999, he broke up with his
brother and started Jaipur Rugs on his own.
The business struggled on for several years
because he had never concentrated on other
areas of business other than production. “It
was a process of self-discovery. I had to
own up for all that went wrong,” Mr. NK
Chaudhary says. |