Sunday, September 16, 2012

rough week

After 'accounitng' in Delhi holding Praveen up [it is all finished now- what an expensive and dangerous farce!] he is home- yippee!!!
After months and months of struggling to get all our company tax done, variuos other official papers relating to our business etc,etc, etc we finally applied for a business visa to Austalia.
We have clients to see and were planiing a little family and friend visiting as well, and 2 weddings.
Being nervous we used the services of a visa agent- he filled out the form reading all the questions and ticking boxes etc....Praveen signed and we sent it in.....well seems the guy missed one of the correct answers and ticked no where he should have said yes.
Big blooper on the form translates into us lying on the form -so it was rejected. Agent is all oh, oh, oh just one little mistake- nervous haha....not good attitude.
Our big mistake for not re-reading everything...it is now too late to re-apply....so disappointed.
We love living in India, have a legitimate business [yes and are manic enough to have done all the correct paperwork and applications to prove it!!!!] we NEVER intend to live in Australia we just want to visit sometimes. Why is that so hard?
Many years ago Praveen had an application rejected simply stating they did not belive he would leave Australia once arrived.
We have been around the Holy Fire and consider ourselves married but do not have a piece of paper to say so...would he have visiting rights if we had paper? Don't know.
All rather confusing and disappointing.

Well putting that aside- meet Dasrath...he has been a great help creating our new samples for Pukka Desirables [always in consultation with Papu-ji, our workshop manager and us].
Dasrath is a little shy, even after a year and a half but the last month or 3 has seen him really come into his own. He is showing such care and concern working on samples, starting to feel comfortable when he can see a way to put things together that might be quicker, might look good,might improve quality etc.
Every new item no matter how simple has a long story of head scratching behind it and when I can work with those who do the actual construction rather than they doing exactly as I say- well sort of- and not a real concern for outcome- well it becomes exciting and WE have a new item that reflects OUR workshop.
So Dasrath is our man of the moment....checking, checking, checking is an important part of the work when you use second hand saris.....I have just spent weeks trying to wash 300+ saris and more difficultly dry 300+ saris with monsoon here [it is going by the way- air id drier again between rain showers]
Any marks left will not go, so can't be used, and small rips or holes become very obvious after washing and also should be worked around not used.
It is exhausting building a whole ssytem from scratch, every detail needs to be identified and a best system created to produce repeatable quality work.
It has taken a lot of time to get people to the idea quality matters. ...and I think there is now an element of people finally realising because we do pay fair wages we are NOT idiots who can be taken advantage of.
 Fair wages means fair work being given in return.
We are all in this together...good work will bring more work for ALL of us, bad work we mean we are all out of a job.
The day Papu-ji realised we work out the ladies wages on the same systen as the men and the same rate structure was quite a shock for him- that type of idea is pretty much unheard of out in the sticks where we live. I rather brisquely pointed out my work is worth the same as anyone else's not less because I am female- true or not???? and so why should any woman's be less. He had to sit back and process it, once he got he has embraced the idea our workshop sits squarely on the shoulders of men and women' work. Women are not an unseen, un-mentioned back bone of the place and also our men are not an unseen, unknown backbone of Praveen and my business. ...we try and aknowledge all involved [yes next task will be to improve our website to showcase this more]

Our big pluses today
  • Praveen is home and all the 'accounting' in Delhi is laid to rest
  • workshop is humming nicely and we know we are getting better at how to approach our work
  • people we employ are increasingly becomeing part of our project- we hear them say and feel we are all in this together.... so happy with that
  • we have a good system in place now to track who works on an item and labels carry their name...
  • we have a happy future to look forward to and one day Praveen will be able to visit Austrlian family and friends in tehri home
Happy day to you.....sometimes you might need a moan [well I do] but it is better to then pick yourself up and count your blessings

 

1 comment:

Ginny Huber said...

Yes, agreed; sometimes a moan is needed..and also counting of blessings! SO sorry about the visa snafu. Glad to hear and see all the rest is going so well; have a great time in Oz..