Turning mundane into exquisite

Started by twenty-somethings Bushra and Zoya Hasan,with their elder sister Maryam Ahmed,IndyBindy is an attempt to support their parents’ organisation in Kora Jahanabad,a village of 35,000 in Uttar Pradesh. “Almost 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. My mother runs an NGO called Ashiana for village women,and we thought it would be a good idea to train them to create commercially viable artefact. But to do that,we had to first teach ourselves what was commerically viable,” says Ahmed. “We began to design the products ourselves in order to understand buyers.”

IndyBindi’s motto is to convert “mundane everyday things that you had never thought would look good into designs that make you stare”. There are lines of kettles in vivid hues and bold rural motifs,parrot-green lanterns with butterflies and flowers,and a steel balti in peacock blue which can used as a wastepaper bin. “We are surprised that what had started as a hobby of colouring old utensils has become a promising business venture,” says Zoya,a student at the Delhi College of Art.

Adds Ahmed,an animation artist and graphic designer,“The products had to appeal to rural sensibilities because,ultimately,it would be the village women making these.” So,a doodhwala’s measuring can is transformed into a holder for pencils or spoons in the kitchen,an oil measuring can is painted so that it can now display flowers,a dhobi’s heavy iron brighten up a dark corner,while an ordinary chaiwala’s kettle can also now to be used to store candies. “We’ve found that rural sensibilities have to be tutored to fit the urban style sense,” says Ahmed. A few months after the venture began,IndyBindi is available at Just Around the Corner and Zaza in Delhi and The Indian Story in Goa.

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