Sachin, a computer engineering grad from a leading university in tamilnadu along with his friend Basil Varghese who is a mechanical engineer were finding themselfs unemployed after graduating, and hence they decided to open up, a business of their own, but they didn't go after lucritative computer field but directly to plate manufacturing.
Sachin, along with his friend Basil Varghese, rented a building near sachins house and installed a modern hydraulic machine with metal mould. Seeing him rolling up his dhoti and going about his village cutting off areca spathes ( PALA in malayalam), a few villagers chided him, “Why don’t you look for a better job? Aren’t you an engineering graduate?”
“Isn’t this a decent job?” he shot back.
“It is a bit infra dig,” they maintained.
He knew it was not. One’s sincerity would bring dignity to any kind of labour, manual or otherwise, he believed. He was bent on showing them how any ordinary job can get transformed with the sheen of sweat, commitment and innovation.
“I knew I was going to make areca plates of an international quality. I get the spathes washed in a tank of clean water. They are dried and moulded to different shapes in high heat. The plates are wrapped in air-tight packets. The products, thus, maintain high standards of hygiene,” he claimed.
Getting areca spathes in large quantities was not easy, he found.
Wayanad, Palakkad, and Kunnamkulam have vast swathes of areca plantations. “But the spathes get wasted there. I have now created a database of farmers who can sell areca spathes,” he said.
Areca leaf plates are eco-friendly, bio-degradable and chemical-free.
He has seen his grandmother keep pickles and jackfruit preserves in areca spathe coverings. Farmers, while toiling in agricultural fields, would have rice gruel or tapioca and roasted dried fish served on the areca spathes.
“But modern Kerala has shed this agrarian habit. People prefer plastic plates to those made from natural resources. Four decades ago, the Central Food Technological Research Institute of Mysore had discovered the usefulness of areca spathe plates. Kerala is yet to realise the importance and export potential of areca products,” he said.
He has. He once dreamt of being an exporter. “It was a dream a self-employed youth from a Thrissur village could not afford to have,” he said.
His dream has come true — he exported 1 lakh areca spathe plates to Europe recently.
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And thus a computer engineering graduate from Thrissur earns a living making areca spathe plates.!!!!
Source: Hindu
