Young entrepreneurs shine at ‘Kuppai Thiruvizha’

CHENNAI : At a time when the Central government is promoting startups, the youth from across the city got a chance to express their entrepreneurial skills at Greater Chennai Corporation’s Kuppai Thiruvizha.
On Sunday, Anna Nagar tower park was filled with more than 100 young entrepreneurs who showcased products such as eco-toothbrushes, newspaper bags, glass lanterns, pillows made of cotton scrap and clay water bottles among other eco-friendly products. 

Express spoke to the entrepreneurs who detailed their experiences and products. Harika Balam brought out natural floor cleaners, toilet cleaners and liquid for washing clothes. ‘’It is all made with citrus and jaggery. I take fruit juice and mix with jaggery, letting it remain like that for two months. If we keep the bottle closed for more days, the concentration becomes heavy and can’t be used for washing toilet floor,’’ she says.

Whereas, for washing clothes, she mixes citrus, jaggery with some amount of soap nuts. ‘’It is all made in my house and I sell it through social media,’’ says Balam, who has named her start-up as ‘’3-ree products -- for a greener environment.’’ She also makes brooms and small dust-cleaners using coconut husk fibres. 

Wooden-notebooks and clay water bottles placed in the festival will not miss anybody’s attention. One year ago,  Anjanakshi B and U Soundaryan, two architects in their early 20s, started ‘Wallistry’ - a small smart up to make clay bottles and design just after they finished college. 

They make teakwood notebooks, terracotta cups, clay bottles and stone wares for houses. “We work with craftsmen and designers all over Tamil Nadu. The notebooks we make are of acid-free papers, which will last 50 years,’’ says Anjanakshi.  The customised clay bottles cost about `500 and notebooks `450. They import it to all over India. Food entrepreneurs too shared the stage to promote organic products. Kuppai Thiruvizha, aimed at promoting zero-waste, had workshops and talks to curb the use of plastic and make the city green.

Participants
Giving free ‘Jaggery balls’ for people to taste at Kuppai Thiruvizha was ‘Kamarakattu Srini’ (32). That’s how people call him, he says, as he has been making Kamarakattu (Jaggery balls), Moongdall and rice laddus. Vidya Bhat,  another artist who was at the event, collects empty wine bottles from beaches and shops to repaint them for home-decoration purposes