Saturday, 31 December 2016

Welcome 2017; Au Revoir 2016

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous year ahead, 2017. Let’s enter into the New Year with our new self – full of zeal and contemplation. Be charged with the optimism and hope of accomplishing whatever you are passionate about; de-emphasize the discouraging failures you had, if any, in the past. An isolated failure or a string of unsuccessful events, businesses, and relationships are not going to decide the fate of the perceivable future. Be the driver of the future you envision, we can’t change the past but we can administer our future in the best possible way. Retrospect and extract the learnings out of the past year and try to give your best to the year ahead. 

In the treasury of your memories, it’s always going to be a mixed assortment of feelings. Not letting any negative event affect the clean slate of our future forms the premise underpinning the foundation of the approaching year 2017. It’s fully in your control to steer the way you want, the direction you choose, the path you find germane and the outcome you believe in, desire. 

It has been a year full of fresh perspectives, experiences for me… quantifying with an adjective or couple of adjectives will not do justice to the year. 

Furthermore, I believe neither should we let challenges pull us down, demoralise… nor should we get carried away, treat anyone with haughty disdain at the moment of our happiness and success (transient/ superficial). Love, courteousness, helpful approach and thankful demeanour towards whosoever we come in contact with, unlocks the inward and convincing contentment. Indeed. 

Wishing you all a very ecstatic and prosperous 2017. Let’s try to stay motivated, inspired, and workaholic enough to support our envisaged vision. Let’s pray and hope for the good health, happiness & success of all; hopelessness is a sin. 

Thank You

Yasir Reshi

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Pashmina Shawl manufacturing, video provoked a viewpoint



Take a moment and appreciate the work of artisans involved in the end to end process of weaving a beautiful (handwoven) Pashmina Shawl.

It can take up to a year to complete the end-to-end process of manufacturing a handwoven embroidered Pashmina Shawl. Activities ranging from dehairing (clean-up) the raw pashmina wool, spinning yarn, weaving, and embellishing the Shawl with breath-taking embroidery (hand stitching with an exquisite design).

Let's think about the other side of the story – If I’m not wrong in assuming the demand dynamics of handwoven Pashmina Shawl insinuating at a gradual decline in the sales. Therefore, business houses may curtail their spending/ investment in this antique stuff, leading to low wages to artisans and least incentive (motivation) for someone new to learn the art. Why would an artisan prefer this as a career? Or why would his next generation indulge in this trade?

Erosion in the number of skilled craftsmen can result in the existential crises via-à-vis handwoven shawl industry. Cultivating and nurturing the skill, expertise of hand weaving/ stitching should be the priority of every business house.

While I've seen a great deal of people involved in selling (trading) of shawls, I’m skeptical about the magnitude of manufacturing, and I’m talking about the handwoven stuff not the machine driven manufacturing.

Unequivocally businesses are becoming more and more competitive. However, handwoven shawls warrant a competition based on product differentiation strategy as opposed to cost leadership.