Araatrika - Jagruti Khabiya-Jain's Happy Green Stationary
Meet Jagruti Khabiya-Jain and her happy, green venture, Araatrika, that is synonymous with beautiful & purposeful recycled stationary. From gorgeous notebooks made with leftover paper from printing presses and bound with cloth from tailors + designers to newspaper pencils packed with seeds that you can plant and recycled seed paper & cards, this eco brand has set out to change the way we look at and use our stationary. Dig right into this #greenstory.
C. Tell us more about yourself& where you’re based, your green business and how & when you started.
J. An Architect by profession, but an Environmentalist by choice. Araatrika was born last year in the month of March. While working as a junior architect, with a reputed firm in Pune city, I fell sick and was on leave for two weeks. During that time, the only thing that would bother me was to start something of own. Something that I love and makes me happy. Environment being at the top of my list and up-cycling being really close to my heart, I knew I wanted to start designing and making products from waste.
Being an eco-architect, I was practicing green architecture in Auroville and Delhi, before working in Pune. During that leave, I finalized on a name, made my logo and even started making products at home . Within two weeks, I had signed up for an exhibition at a flea market. Thus, began the struggle of working for 8 hours in the day time and 5 hours through the night to make the products required for the very first exhibition cum sale. The outcome just motivated me to do my bit every single day until I finally quit my job in September. That’s how Araatrika came in to my life and we’ve been growing together ever since.
Araatrika comes from “A- Ratri” , a Sanskrit word for something that diminishes the darkness and brings light into one’s life. That’s what we do, we make up-cycle, re-cycle, and make sustainable products to bring green back into a world full of greys and blacks!
C. Why do you do what you do?
J. Passion. That’s the only thing that keeps me going. An urge to save the planet, a need to do something about the dying animal life, polluted water bodies and ever filling landfills.
C. What kind of products or services can one source from your brand – please tell us about your offerings?
J. Araatrika specializes in eco-gifts and stationery. We have products such as up-cycled newspaper Happy pencils, Happy seedplantable pencils. Happy seed cards, Happy up-cycled diaries, Happy Seed Rakhis. You can grow your own saplings from most of our products. We can even customize plantable wedding cards, invitation cards and visiting cards for you!
C. What is the price range and are these available through exhibitions or even online?
J. All our products are reasonably priced. Starting from Rs.50 upto Rs. 500 .These can be bought online/at various eco fairs that we participate in and even in some of the leading stationery stores of Pune.
C. What is your philosophy and thought process behind this venture?
J. ABOUT....
Araatrika is an attempt towards creating a conscious retail of products dealing with home decor, stationery and gifting.
PRODUCT PHILOSOPHY...
Handcrafted and made with love. Each product is 100% environment friendly.
From design process to execution, attention to detail is given great importance.
C. Which products are your favorites and why?
J. My personal favorite product is the happy up-cycled diary. I thoroughly enjoy mixing and matching various waste fabrics collected from different tailors and fashion designers to form its outer cover. It is then stitched by under-privileged women to make beautiful unique covers for each diary. The paper inside is again sourced from various printing presses. Their left over paper is collected, sorted and finally hand bound to make a 100% up-cycled happy diary!
C. What has been your challenges in growing a green/social biz?
J. First and foremost, lack of awareness. Secondly, reluctance to change. Thirdly, cost was a major factor initially but we are now at a stage where we can happily say that “Eco-Friendly” is not just for the elite or premium class of the society.
C. What tips would you offer someone who wants to start a green business?
J. Never give up! It’s a roller coaster but absolutely worth it!
C. What does going green mean to you & how has it translated into your lifestyle?
J. Green is a way of life and for me, there is no other way. We belong to this planet and definitely owe it a lot of respect. Just knowing that you respect the ground beneath your feet and the air around you, translates into a lot of actions on a day to day basis. Random act of kindness towards the environment around us, can take a long way.
C. Please share any links through which people can find out about your products.
Thanks for joining us!
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