Community Search……
I began my journey of this Project by understanding.. What is a community? How is it formed? Then exploring a few communities like maids in the Bodakdev area near SG highway, Lathi bazaar near gomtipur, Blind man’s association, etc. I then crosschecked if the people I am meeting fit in the given criteria of a community- can I call them a community? Are they sharing infrastructure? Is community trading happening? Are they procuring resources from the similar places? That’s when I understood the community of disables people and blind people that I was more inclined in pursuing as my project topic are actually like us, the students committee of NID, the similarities among themselves are not in terms of trade. They are a part of an NGO- Blind man’s association, it is an organisation who is working towards giving them education and making them able to be self employed. After which I went about exploring more communities, meeting groups of people- mapping what’s common in them in terms of trade, infrastructure, resources that they procure, share, culture, society, etc.

Following are the communities I explored initially in groups with my classmates :
• Art and craft Exhibition, Paldi, Ahmedabad.
• Ganesh Murti makers, Gulbai tekra, nr. university area, Ahmedabad,
• Stone/ pebbles walas at Gulbai tekra, nr.university area, Ahmedabad,
• Raison village, specifically Raison school, Gandhinagar,
• Phool Bazar, Jamalpur, Ahmedabad,
• Muslim women community- Rakhi makers, Millatnagar, Ahmedabad.

In all the visits I tried to understand the social background they are coming for, how the community was formed, common aspects in their individual or family businesses, their problems, etc.

Ultimately I encountered Law Garden Market on the way and the colours, the crowd, the sense of competition, quite organised system of street hawking which is in one linear stretch fascinated me the most and decided on taking up this as my project.

Law garden market is located in the heart of the city Ahmedabad. It is famous for buying handicraft items, traditional navratri dresses and junk food.

I am focusing on the linear market stretch approximately 200 meters long outside the garden which is filled with street hawkers selling handicrafts products and traditional dresses with kutchi embroidery. The makers of such dresses belong to the “Rabaran” community, involved in this business from generations to generations.
During the day time, there routine from morning 9:00 am to 4:00 pm is to procure materials from the local market, purely logistics in which men of the family are involved, while as woman are involved in getting the dresses stitched, designing the dresses, hand stitching, etc, The business actually starts from 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm in the law garden market.

I observed that there are multiple businesses happening in the market which makes it look lively and colourful as listed below:
Street Hawkers(Handicraftsmen) to the Customer.
• Marvari’s street hawkers selling taurans and decorative jumars;
• The Rabaran’s who have taken up the space in this linear market stretch since 45 to 50 years selling colourful chaniya cholli’s, bedspreads, cushion covers, bags, wall hangings, traditional kurti’s etc.
• Jewellery walas selling traditional mala’s, bangles, kada’s, navratri sets made up of metal which is later oxidized.

Thela wala’s to the Street hawkers.
• Chai wala’s providing chai, pan masala’s, bidi’s to these hawkers.
• Electricity providers who give bulbs and batteries on rent to these hawkers, etc.

The targeted people for this Community research Project of Social entrepreneurship are these people doing businesses to earn their daily bread in the law garden market. They themselves are the Buyers from the facility providers as well as the sellers to a wide customer audience from NRI’s to people all over the country visiting Ahmedabad, from tourists to the localites. Their Rosi Roti depends on this difference of monetary transactions that they perform. There is no record maintained of the exchanges that they do. These people are uneducated but skilled handicraftsmen. They have learnt this skill from there ancestors, these are family run businesses since last 50 years approximately. The market have evolved since then, earlier they use to sit at the road side outside the garden and do the same business, now Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation have provided a raised platform and a mild steel fabricated stalls for these people. The variety of products/ dresses that they sell now are getting modernised and gradually easier ways to earn are penetrating in this market as a trend, which has increased the feeling of competition among themselves resulted into the immense bargaining. This interested me to taken as a project as it promotes the handicraft of Gujarat, making sure the essence, charm of traditional culture of the state is not vanished. Also, there business process involves all the attributes that a corporate organisation performs but scope in formulization and giving them there rights from the Municipal Corporation is needed vastly.

Having visited there almost everyday has given me deeper insights of the market, the densed business process they follow to survive, though they are uneducated people. These visits were helpful to extract the primary information for the project, but I think this is just the beginning…a lot more will follow.