Nestled along the meandering banks of the Jhelum River is the village of Ookhu at Kakpora in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, 26km from Srinagar. Ookhu has earned itself the title of ‘pencil village of India’, and rightly so. It has beaten competition from China and Germany to become a major supplier of raw materials to leading pencil manufacturers in India.
Manzoor Ahmad Allaie lives in one of the 250 quaint homes that comprise the village. He was born into the timber trade. As a young boy, he watched his father—a small-time timber trader—toil hard to provide for his wife, two sons and a daughter. After he finished schooling in 1996, Allaie persuaded his father to sell some land to buy a bandsaw mill and set up Jhelum Agro Industries. He began by making poplar boxes to transport Kashmir’s famed bloodred apples.
The mill improved the family’s finances, but Allaie had bigger dreams. In 2012, he travelled to Jammu and convinced Hindustan Pencils, India’s top pencil maker, that Jhelum Agro Industries could meet their raw material needs. It first supplied poplar logs and then shifted to slats—5.2mm thick wooden blocks that could be used to make four pencils. That was a decisive move, as demand for slats soared. Allaie hired 15 people, secured a bank loan to buy a machine to make slats and a generator to power the machine during power cuts. “Making a slat is half the job done,” explains Allaie. “We succeeded in that and the business took off.” His success inspired his neighbour Feroz Ahmed, owner of Barkat Saw Mills, to follow suit and provide raw materials to pencil manufacturers outside Kashmir.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 11, 2024-Ausgabe von THE WEEK India.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 11, 2024-Ausgabe von THE WEEK India.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Pressure Points
Author and MP Shashi Tharoor and motivational speaker Gaur Gopal Das on how to find healing and meaning in today's world
War Over Wounded Earth
For the BJP andthe Congress, the ravaged farmlands of Vidarbha represent a cxitieal battleground in their larger struggle to win Maharashtra
Say no to continual elections
Following the recommendations of a high-level committee led by former president Ram Nath Kovind to streamline the widely scattered schedule of national, state and local elections, the Union cabinet has reportedly approved two constitutional amendment bills for likely introduction in Parliament. Predictably, the return of the ‘one nation, one election’ issue to news has set off a flurry of objections by several opposition leaders.
Fabulously, fashionably funny
The third season of the Karan Johar-produced Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives dropped on Netflix, but articles criticising the show appear in some news site or the other almost daily. If it is so bad, why keep writing about it? And if it is so bad, why would the superpowers at Netflix, who are harder to meet than the prime minister, commission the show season after season?
All in the family
The Chitaras have been passing down the secret art of Mata Ni Pachedi through generations for more than 400 years now
Raise a toast to Vidya Balan
Vidya Balan is a New Year baby. At 45, she is aglow in the most beautiful way, having won the hearts and admiration of countless fans across the world, who watched the supremely talented actor take a public tumble on stage at a high-profile promotional event recently, sharing the platform with no less a dancer than the eternally graceful Madhuri Dixit.
Death no bar
Being alive is not a legal requirement to be elected president of the United States
The Lotus POTUS
You should visit us one of these days— there is so much excitement in our USA! No, I don’t mean the famous USA—the Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association of Mumbai.
RAY OF HOPE
Actor and cancer survivor Lisa Ray talks to oncologist Dr Jame Abraham about inner strength and her surrogacy journey
LEVERAGE AI TO ENHANCE WORK
AT THE WEEK Health Summit, Siddharth Bagga, head (retail, CPG and health care), Google Cloud, elaborated on the significant work that Google has been doing in health care through artificial intelligence (AI).