A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BOUTIQUEWALI - SKILL

My employees and me




A lady in her early 60’s walked into my store to enquire about the services offered. Her appearance humble and dignified. Salt and pepper hair well oiled and plaited, a big maroon Kumkum pottu on the forehead, adorned by some basic gold jewellery that are considered mandatory by south Indian women. A simple chiffon saree with floral prints and a plain full voile blouse with a slight puff on the sleeves.
  The tailor who she visits regularly is now too old to do a good job and she couldn’t find any new ones who can stitch a well fitted blouse; that caused much frustration for her.  I could make out that she is the kind of person who makes meticulous efforts to look smart. As confident as I was about making well fitted garments, I didn’t want to promise her anything. As expected, she was taken aback upon knowing how much it would cost her for a blouse. She politely expressed,
  “Well, that is too expensive, dear. Whatever happened to the time when tailors not just made good clothes but also made matching hairbands or purses from the left-over fabric and gave it as compliments. These days everyone is money minded and bad at their job!”
     She did have a point and her amicable nature pushed me to present my perspective.
“Aunty, these days everybody wants a 9-5 corporate desk job where the pay is good, and what the society appreciates. Not many aspire to be a tailor, or for that matter a plumber and electrician. Scarcity of skilled labour among the local population pushes us to bring such people from other parts of the country to meet our demands. We must provide them a furnished accommodation & cooking gas and pay them well. As a boutique that offers a wide variety of services, I employ the best in the trade and pay them accordingly.  So, I bear the rent of my shop, their accommodation, cooking gas, salaries, and taxes. I must price my services to cover these costs. If there were enough hardworking & skilled local tailors who ran their shops in the front end of their own homes, everyone can afford good, customised clothes”.
  She understood, “you’re probably right. I’ll see if I can get something made from you. My best wishes to you ma, I appreciate your efforts”. We exchanged warm smiles as she left.
I also thought to myself that to live a comfortable life we don’t necessarily have to earn more money, we just need to be a society full of knowledgeable and skilful people.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PUT IN PLACE

Image
Me bored Boredom was a common feeling in my childhood. At such times, I’ll run off to my ammamma’s house which was walkable distance from my home hoping that a change of place would amuse me. One such afternoon in 1996 when I was 11, going there didn’t help either. I was so bored, so bored, I almost cried. Mindlessly changing channels on the cable TV, I saw an advertisement for Coca Cola, it had just penetrated into smaller cities like Trichy and was aggressively marketing. The drink came in an attractive red, first-of-its-kind tin can that you got to pop open, all the cool white skinned teens in the ad were drinking it and seemingly, having the time of their lives. Anything new in the market, I had to try it; so, I decided to entertain myself by drinking some cola. A coke can costed Rs. 20 and I had 0. What do I do for funds? Ammamma can be my financier, I thought. She was in the dining hall serving lunch to my mama. I put on the sweet-grandchild face and politely requested her to gi...
Read more

Sambhar Idli for the Hungry Soul

Image
 I have collected many tiny memories of my relatives and mine and strung them all together into one fictional story. This 15-minutes-read is set in the late 1980's small town in Tamil Nadu,India.The picture of my father and me is to add some character to the story . The last gulp is the sweetest, thought 5-year-old Babbu as she drank the lemonade freshly squeezed by her ammamma. It was almost nightfall on a Sunday. Babbu had a rollicking weekend at her ammamma’s house playing games like lock-and-key and hide-and-seek with her cousins. It was then time for her to go back to her house which was in the next street. Mother called out to her elder sister who was reading a book sitting on a branch of the guava tree, an advantageous location for when she wanted to snack on her favourite fruit. Babbu, amma and akka bid farewell to everyone and started their 5 minutes’ walk to their home. There was an eerie calm in the atmosphere, the sky was darkening, all the shops in the street wer...
Read more

BOUTIQUE CHRONICLES - PRINCESS FACTORY

Image
                A large part of the custom tailoring orders undertaken at Composium are for Princess Gowns.  These gowns are made mostly for girls between 7 to 10 years of age. I see passionate mothers who would go to any length to throw the perfect birthday party for their daughters; they would also scout for any length of fabric in their little girl's favourite color to give her the perfect gown.           So, the whole princess experience begins with the mothers bringing their girls to my boutique after school. It is so cute to see the little ones tag along their mothers like ducklings behind Mama duck - without a care in the world chatting away about their day at school. The mother will begin with her grand plans for the girl's birthday, this is precisely the point when these girls will look at my reaction for validation. I pamper them with the mandatory excited expression and say something like, " Oh wo...
Read more