A hope cut out of cloth

Wheelchair-bound Anandeshwari S makes cloth bags for a living, and is enthused by the Tamil Nadu government’s Meendum Majai Pai campaign

Disappointments could have shrunk her dreams, slimming them down to healthy sizes. After all, manageable dreams pay the bills. Outrageous ones dry up resources. But 33-year-old Anandheswari S has kept hers undiminished and stable like liquid mercury, despite the searing heat surrounding them.

In 2018, she launched an enterprise to make shopping bags, handbags, pouches and purses, all out of cloth. She had four full-timers on her payroll and taken a space on rent. The enterprise died a premature death: laid to rest in four months. The cause however remained, like the cotton bags she creates, “reusable”.

When Tamil Nadu officially announced to go single-use-plastic-free in January 2019, an opportunity loomed on the horizon. Anandheswari hoped for the best, but would not overreach herself. She continued to work from home, waiting for bulk orders. As it turned out, despite the ban, single-use plastic bags were as resilient as the cat with nine lives, and they were soon back in circulation.