Surat-based Rashi Agarwal introduced Roohani Rang, a hand-crafted stationery trade. It recycles cotton waste to create sustainable merchandise like journals, planners, sketchbooks, calendars, and so forth — all designed by means of artisans professional in conventional Indian artwork paperwork.
Rashi Agarwal’s ultimate yr of faculty was once extremely enriching. She launched into a national adventure to discover conventional artwork and craft paperwork, serious about her thesis. From Delhi to Jaipur, Kutch to Ahmedabad, and Puducherry to Pune, she sought out artisans, soaking up their wisdom and strategies.
In spite of the range of artwork paperwork she encountered, there was once a unifying thread amongst all of them — the dwindling call for for hand made paintings as society gravitated towards machine-printed artwork.
How may this 25-year-old have the ability to offer a livelihood to those artisans? This query gnawed on the Surat resident even after she returned house.
It was once round this time that she started portray the quilt pages of diaries, that have been extremely liked by means of her family and friends. Since many of the artisans she visited labored within the paper trade, she puzzled if she may flip her love for drawing and portray right into a trade that would supply employment to those who labored by means of hand.
She sought after to revolutionise the distance by means of making those age-old practices of hand-crafted merchandise interesting to lately’s shoppers and bringing them again into pattern. With this concept in thoughts, Rashi began ‘Roohani Rang’ — a hand-crafted stationery trade that sells sustainable merchandise.
What makes the project stand aside is that the goods — be it diaries, planners, calendars, and extra — are constructed from cotton waste. Up to now, Rashi has bought over 15,000 planners and hired over 50 artisans, whilst recycling 9,732 kg of cotton.
No bushes had been harmed in making this paper
Throughout her ultimate yr of bachelor’s on the Raman Bhakta College of Structure in Surat, Rashi determined to project into trade. The catch — it was once 2020, the second one wave of COVID-19 was once wreaking havoc around the nation, and the then pupil had simply Rs 5,000 to start out her trade.
She nonetheless determined to take at the problem head-on, as she remembered the phrases of the craftsmen and girls she met. “Maximum of them had no paintings because of COVID-19 and had been suffering to make ends meet. They had been desperately short of paintings. I used to be aware of their fact as I spent a number of days with them. I knew that I needed to assist them,” Rashi tells The Higher India.
The architect determined to start out in Jaipur and revisited the artisans, explaining her concept to them. After spending a couple of days with them, she were given them on board together with her imaginative and prescient. Together with her preliminary funding, she produced 50 diaries.
Given the super reception, she reinvested the cash to enlarge her product vary to incorporate extra stationery pieces — corresponding to planners, calendars, notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, and extra. Her objective was once to convey exchange within the artisanal house by means of introducing good design interventions and fostering synergy between designers, artisans, and the tip person.
Rashi selected to make use of paper-making tactics which were practised in India for hundreds of years, corresponding to hand-crafted paper making, hand sewing of paper, table-top display screen printing, and hand block printing. Each and every manufactured from Roohani Rang is meticulously hand-crafted, devoid of any chemical compounds or dyes, in line with the founder.
“My concept is to make use of those outdated tactics and lead them to relatable in lately’s international. As a fashion designer, I wish to keep those crafts by means of generating them in some way this is palatable,” she provides.
Roohani Rang recycles cotton waste to make their stationery. They use miniature portray, Gond artwork, Madhubani artwork, and Tanjore portray of their merchandise.
Recycling cotton waste into bespoke stationery
The manufacturing at Roohani Rang is a long-drawn procedure and begins with buying pre-consumer textile waste from factories. Pre-consumer waste refers to any extra subject material that arises all through the manufacturing of yarn, materials and textiles.
“This waste is in most cases despatched to the landfills and will’t be used to make the rest because it’s in small items. We determined to make use of this to make our paper, which is finished in lots of clusters throughout India, like Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Puducherry. The added good thing about the use of cotton waste is that it’s already white and doesn’t want any chemical compounds to wash it up,” provides Rashi.
This cotton waste is then shredded into smaller items and transformed into paper.
The shredded cotton waste is transformed from pulp to paper by means of the artisans in a pool of water. This water may be reused, mentions Shaunak Desai, architect and spouse at Roohani Rang.
The paper is then dried, revealed, certain and packed. Each and every step of the method is hand-crafted, states Shaunak.
Roohani Rang has a warehouse in Surat the place they make the prototypes in their merchandise, put up which they’re produced in massive amounts in Jaipur, Puducherry or Ahmedabad. All their merchandise are hand revealed and hand certain.
“The paper and printing are completed in a single cluster, whilst the binding and packaging are completed in Surat. Relying on the type of product and paper required, we make a selection the cluster the place it might be made. For instance, if display screen printing is needed, we get it completed in Jaipur,” explains Rashi.
Shaunak provides that a typical piece of paper calls for 10 litres of water to be made, at the side of the truth that a tree is minimize. “In comparison to mill-made paper, hand-crafted paper calls for 20 instances much less water. We recycle the similar water to make our paper as no chemical compounds are used. We’ve revamped 15,000 merchandise till now, the use of over 1,500 reams of recycled paper. Thru this, we’ve stored 100 large woodland bushes from being minimize,” explains the architect.
Their merchandise practice a 21-day cycle, as they’re made in several amenities and go via nearly 40 arms in all of the procedure.
Thru this, they supply employment to over 50 artisans and feature 15 staff. In addition they advertise psychological well being and proportion techniques to have in mind via their posts on Instagram. In 4 years, they’ve bought over 15,000 merchandise and feature garnered a following of over 40,000 on Instagram.
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Rashi desires to enlarge to ceramics and garments by means of 2025. “Why create extra waste when we will be able to recycle the present waste? My venture is to offer a livelihood to artisans who’re nearly at the verge of extinction, and in addition to stay their gorgeous artwork paperwork alive,” says Rashi.
Edited by means of Pranita Bhat