An advise to these guys

Anyway, most of these livelihoods have done a lot of iterations in their business. They have been successful and have sustained their business for more than 5 years. Their profit margin has gone up.
But here's what they can do, so called destructive criticism. Mr.Keshavan takes his elephant for a walk 4 days in a week. He basically takes it to a garden to feed it sugarcane and for it to relax. Mr P.K Rajagopal cleans his beautiful swimming pool every Thursday evening. The waste water goes to the farm all around the pool. Elephants love water, don't they! If Keshavan could take Sree Durga to the pool every Thursday evening and probably charge people for watching it bathe, the elephant could be much cleaner for the temple. Anyway, the water would go to the farm. If the elephant shits around or pisses, it would work well as the manure for the farm. Since the farm grows fodder, some of the fodder can be fed to the elephant making it healthier.
Both these businesses would benefit from such a skin and the elephant would get a better life.

Livelihood dependent on innovative business

Here we'll have a look at how innovative business plays a major role in livelihoods of certain people. In most of these cases the people have been successful.

Majestic Mahout













The small shed you see on top is where the temple elephant of Vidyaranyapura is kept. The mahout wasn't willing to let us photograph the elephant unless we had some kind of permission which we did not, but I'll be putting up a picture soon.

Name: Mr.Keshavan
Years in business: 9
Tools: Elephant req 80 litres of water and 200kg food per day
Earns: Rs 5000 a month
Mr Keshavan has been working as a mahout for around 9 years. Born and brought up in Tamil Nadu, his ancestors have been mahouts for 3 generations. Sree Durga, a 12 year old elephant is taken to the Durga Parameshwari temple 3 -4 times a week. The rest of the days, she is taken for a walk for nearly 20km per day. The elephant is fed sugarcane and grass.
Asked about how well she is taken care of, Keshava replied by saying that the elephant is monitered by Mrs Ganguly from CUPA. Elephants have a life span of 120 years in the jungle.
One wonders whether Sree Durga can live that long in this situation. The space and shelter provided was very poor.
Hindus pay respect to Lord Ganesha through the elephant and kids certainly seem amused at the sight of an elephant in a temple. Sree Durga may not be.
But this certainly is an innovative way of building a livelihood for Keshavan. Though he may not be earning much, he seemed happy with his job.

Fruit plantation













In our next trip, we take off to GKVK(Gandhi Krishi Vigyana Kendra) which is joint with the UAS(University of Agricultural sciences). Large areas comprising of cash crops, the GKVK is a foundation for many livelihoods.


Name: Mr.Vinay
Years in business: 6
Tools: All kinds of tools needed in farming
Earns: Wouldn't reveal
Meet Mr.Vinay, a 40 year old family man who seems really confident about life, dosen't give a damn to any criticism he receives. And why not, he has a degree in Science, was into chemical networking later on and now owns a 500 acre farm. Wild chikoos, Mangos of the variety Mallika and Arampoli, Guavas, Papayas and Coconuts are grown on his farm. These fruits are sold in small shops and sometimes even exported.
Two special things we saw in his farm were, it was completely organic with absolutely no use of insecticides or pesticides. This keeps the soil intact and fertile and the fruits turn out to be tastier than what you buy in conventional stores like food world. Other speciality, students from the UAS are free to conduct study on his plantation.
Mr.Vinay, like any good businessman would not reveal his profit when asked. He sold us a kg of Mallika for Rs30 and gave one mango free, great generosity?




Swim n Save


Thindlu, also known as the tennis village in Bangalore is where Mahesh Bhupathi learnt tennis as a kid. Next to the tennis academy is a swimming pool, which is not just a swimming pool. We'll have a look.
Name: Mr.P.K.Rajagopal
Years in business: 5
Tools: Water, chlorine and other farming equipments
Earns: Rs 500 a day in summer as a pool owner
Fortunately for Mr.Rajagopal and unfortunately for us, this is not his livelihood. He is a BJP worker and owns this pool know as P.K.Rajagopal Swimming Pool. Innovative?
Nevertheless, here's an interesting set of events which occur mainly during summer.
The pool opens at 7 in the morning. Subsequently kids uptil the age of 20 rush to take a dip. They need to pay Rs.25 an hour. The number of people is maximum at the peak of the afternoon. This is when you see more heads than water and you can literally walk over the heads to get across. It gets closed on Thursday.
All around the pool is around 250sq feet of farmland. Yes, you guessed it right. The waste water from the pool flows into the farm which is used for growing ragi, rice and all kinds of fodder for cows. Not a drop wasted!
Asked about the impact of chlorine, Mr Ravi, a colleague of Mr.Rajagopal told me that chlorinated water dosen't affect the soil. Having researched on it I found that to be true.
A great way of giving a good time for poor kids and feeding many families and animals. Unfortunately though, this pool is being shut down with real estates grabbing this part of the town. That may not be innovative.


South Indian Chaatwala



Having had a wholesale shop which did badly in business, he did not lose any grip. Went on to invent around 480 chaat items. This shows how one can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat when you keep your heads high up.


Name: Mr.Sanath Kumar and Mr.Chandrashaker
Years in business: 13
Tools: Different crunchy items needed to make chaat
Earns: Approx Rs 20000 a month
These two names mentioned on top might be the greatest ones in chaat history. They started making chaats 13 years ago on a small cart with only 5 items. Since then then, they've moved on adding more and tastier ones. Soon they were able to purchase a fiat car for selling chaats and now they do it in a Piaggo. Selling chaats in a mini-truck, marvellous!
With over 480 different snacks right now, one cannot question their creativity. What else? They have cool drinks too. One of them being masala pepsi, pepsi with jaljeera and chaat masala. May not be healthy but the drink is refreshing and worth a try. Another snack I would recommend is the bun nippat masala. Contains two layers of thick bread, nippat inside it with all different kinds of spicy items which include spicy groundnuts, chillies, cucumbers and tomatos. Nippat is a snack from Karnataka which could be compared to the kakra but beig much harder.
You could also call these guys in case of a birthday party or a wedding. They bring their vehicle with chaats in it at any spot.
Selling 480 different chaats in a mini-truck and earning Rs20000 a month has made a great livelihood for these fatsos.



Road to your future


Here's another person who doesn't like others taking his picture or documenting him. Well, all astrologers wouldn't. We decided just to carefully observe him.
Name: Unknown
Years in business: Unknown
Tools: A pack of cards, a parrot in a cage
Earns: Approx Rs 200 on Tuesdays and Fridays
The road to Durga Parameshwari temple in Vidyaranyapura is full on Tuesdays and Fridays being auspicious. Like what we did with jackfruits, many people gather on both sides of the roads selling various items, especially creative ones. This astrologer sits on the footpath with a parrot in a small cage and a pack of cards. He takes 5-10 minutes to read your future and charges Rs.10. Cheap, isn't it, well ya he could charge much more. Through our observation, we saw him reading a person's hand and decides that person's fate. In the middle of it, he asks the parrot to pick a card and the card decides the persons future. May not be a good sight for organizations like CUPA or PETA but a mild business for the astrologer and a livelihood as well!

Innovations in business

Innovations in business refers to innovations in small businesses like that of a peddler or probably a vegetable seller. Here's something, have you ever tried making quick money, something like Rs 100 in a day. By Rs 100 I mean a profit of Rs 100 minimizing the cost of your capital. Also, one cannot be compassionate such as pretending to be blind, that would drain the shame out of you. It would not be so hard if you think creatively. Put yourself in a customer's position and think what you would be attracted to.
In and around my locality I've noticed many vendors selling jackfruits. To me, the fascination towards jackfruits has been there since childhood. I've done crazy things in childhood to get jackfruits. Having climbed jackfruit trees despite having electric wires passing through them. Some of these trees were located on someone else's agricultural lands. None of these have prevented this magnificant fruit from settling into thy stomach.
Shreesh and Anirrudh have been my inseperable friends having studied together in Srishti for slightly more than a year. We set off on an expedition to make jackfruits more popular and tastier with a good flavour.

At the start, we had to find two jackfruits. Wasn't much of a problem with a forest close by. Getting it was easy with one having to climb a tree and chopping it off. Now, our capital was free.

Soon, the jackfruit was cut with the pods removed and some jackfruits had their seeds removed. Cutting it was a really sticky process. After having removed everything, we rented a small vegetable cart and carried the jackfruit along with the other ingridients all around the neighbourhood.

Sucking on sweet jackfruit flesh dipped in honey dosen't stop any South Indian. But this is always done at home, never done on the streets. Since Indians' love for spices can never be questioned upon, we deceided to add some chat masala. In order to give a contrasting colour and a good look, we added a cherry to the plate. One plate which costed Rs 5 contained 3 jackfruits, honey and chat masala in adequate quatties and a cherry.

Our target was a school. School kids would surely have a great appetite for a unique dish like this while returning. However, on the way to the school we found our first customers who wanted plain jackfruits and bought a few. They said, a temple would be a preferable destination for selling this dish. Half way to the school, we headed back to a temple.

At the temple, we met our first clients. When asked for their opinions, they didn't seem to like it nor did they give us any criticism. Later on this dish started gaining ground with some people trying it out for its uniqueness. Between 11pm to 1pm we sold 10 dishes. Dissatisfied, we moved out.

While travelling, the owner of an idly shop wanted to have a taste. We gave him a plate and to our amusement he jumped up in joy, ordered another plate and asked people around him to try this out. More and more people came in, liking it and demanding more and faster. Occasionally we kept running out of plates, spoons and cherries. This idea gained momentum. A food critic told us that the cherry did not go well with the taste of the dish. At the end of the afternoon we sold around 40 plates. We nearly ran out of jackfruits and headed back home to eat the remaining. None of us hadn't tasted this spectacular dish until now and we deceided to try it out.

To me, it tasted like a sweet chat. The chat masala seemed to dissolve in the honey giving it a taste similar to jaljeera. I would agree with the food critic when he pointed out that the cherry had nothing to do with the dish.

We headed back home having made Rs 270 with an overall profit of Rs 110. To me it was quite an experience. I realized how hard a livelihood was for shop owners, small vendors and other poor people. Innovations can bring about a change. Some go for it and may end up well off and some find it too risky. I believe we as designers should help these people through our field in making their lives better
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These pictures would give you a different perspective of this story