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| About us |
Prageet Sharma, a final year drop out of BE (Chemical) from REC, Jaipur,India, founded Mushkis, which started off in September, 1997 as WD Craft before taking its current avatar in June 2003
| Mushkis.... |
Mushki is a Persian word for fragrance or
musk, an odor smells out from the male musk deer. |
"Mushkis and its products are an expression of my inner self,
my inner fragrance, my CHIRMI; A beautiful tiny red
colored seed of a rare desert plant, wore by tribal as jewels in
vibrant Rajasthan. These chirmies, are medium to spread my
thought of equality in humankind, about independence from all
boundaries, a society above than classes, a world beyond
religion and racism." ...
Prageet sharma |
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Mushkis makes a range of handmade products that are an expression of my inner self, my inner fragrance. The product range spans across a wide set of products including Ethnic Jewellery, Fashion jewellery, Beaded Jewellery, Necklaces, Bangles, Bracelets, Earrings, Embroidery work, Costume Jewellery, Kids & Teens Jewelry, Sterling Silver Jewellery, handmade Business Promotion & Gift Items, Gem Stone, Semi Precious Stones, Glass Bead, wooden Beads, Bone and horn beads, Pendants, Jewellery Making Kit, Beaded Slipper, Jewellery boxes, Pill boxes, Novelties and Photo Frames.
Mushkis, started its journey with only one person, Bahadur, and now has a team of nearly 450-500, artisans, executives, supervisors and other supporting staff, spread over nearly 22 villages in NCR. All the members of the team work as if they are owners themselves. The long list of team members includes Babu Bhai, Aziz, Mobin, Yunus Bhai, Zakir bhai, Harun bhai, Munna Bhai, Aarif bhai, Allauddin, Choudhary ji, Anuj Bhai, Durgesh (Rinku); Girl artisans: Gulbahar, Mimmo, Mohsina, Shafikan, Farzaana, Rukhsaana, Aabida, and Supervisors: Rahees, Afsar, Munfaid, Akhtar, Pyaar, Javed, Azaad, Istekhaar, Shambhu, Naresh; Drivers, Kancha, Aarif And last but not the least, executives who adopted mushkis as a belief and made my dreams for village artisans true are Pragya, Rohit, Santosh, Raj, Mohan, Rakesh ji, Pramod, Thakur ji, Sugandha, Priti, Kamal, Lesan and Kailash .
Prageet has always been inspired by the teachings of his mother, Mrs Aruna Sharma, who has been a strong proponent of providing equal opportunities to all and has always encouraged him to always share first with the needful or deprived, whatever you possess All
we born on the earth are same and should get equal opportunity to survive
and lead our lives (Give first to the
needful, what ever you have Share what you
possesses to those who are deprived were few of her teachings).
This was reinforced by the philosophy of his childhood friends Sonal Jha now a theater, Films and Television actor's and Rupa Jha, now a renowned journalist's, who have always believed in Equal opportunity of Health, Education and Work in the society. They put it as: Har haath ko kaam ho aur kaam ka poora daam ho (Each pair of hands should have adequate work and all work should be adequately compensated.) Sharing each other's observation of school time participation in campaigning and marching for socially deprived people, fighting for their rights and organizing fund raising program for different relief camps enhanced my outlook for future life, says Prageet.
The unconditional, unfathomable, moral and psychological support of childhood friend Rupa Jha,, encourages me in the rough times to keep making 'mushkis' as a belief.
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The deep insight of evolution of Human, Origin of Religions, and Indian as well as international constitution were taught by the elder brother Ashok Sharma, presently working for Jaipur Development Authority. His incessant spirit to fight for socially and economically deprived slum dwellers (Kachchi Basti) and to rehabilitate them through different Government Schemes, inspired me to think the ways to make them self reliant.
The dream, to own and lead a business house based on ethical values with the mindset of Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu, ma kinchit dukh: bhagyabhawet May we all experience what is good and let no one suffer and my belief in the philosophy of Equal opportunity of Health, Education and Work in the society, started taking shape with a core group of friends, Ashish, Bimal, Kapil, Sumit and Rajat, and life brought all of us in New Delhi, just after the days of graduation. With the late twenty's sweet struggle, we all started our journey supporting each other and I found myself roaming around in the rural areas. There I observed the unorganized skill and potential of artisans, specially girls from the socially deprived areas, wasting their lives for the sake of living only. Village artisans, as I call them, have immense potential and talent to cater to the demand for handmade items in developed countries. But their understanding of designs, making techniques and matching international quality standards were poor. Their lack of education and there poor awareness of need of hygiene worsens the situation. The need to earn a living constrains them from learning more.
Many questions plagued my mind: Why was the Government or some NGO not looking into this; Why were the exporters who were earning so much from them not helping out; Why after 50 years of independence, they are still falling prey to the greed of contractors. Thinking through this, an even more important question flashed in my mind- Why not me? Why should I think of lack of support from others and instead why dont I do my bit to elevate their condition?
Thus, the foundation of W.D. Craft was laid with each friend supporting in some capacity or the other- Bimal in IT, Kapil, Rajat in production and Gen admin, Sumit, Avinash in organizing factory and establishing chain assembly process, and the daily discussions with Ashish reinforced the fundamentals of finance for running an industry.
Facing the teething problems due to the culture and socio-eco imbalance of rural areas, mushkis started by clustering village artisans, specially the poor and socially deprived girl artisans in the rural and remote parts of National Capital Region Delhi. This involved educating them on the nuances of manufacturing techniques for high quality handmade Fashion Jewellery, Hair Accessories and other Hand crafted Items, and building an au-fait village production centre in accordance with international standards.
With collective discipline, hard work and complete dedication of these ever zestful Village artisans and divine blessings of parents, Mushkis has made several strides. While the company was once making job work for a prominent export house, Mushkis started exporting these handmade products on its own and started creating its place in the international fashion horizon. |
| One day we will open a toy
manufacturing factory and generate employment was a regular day time dream
with Childhood friends Avinash Sharma an industrial Engineer with a
leading ball bearing industry now and Tarique abdul Hakeem, a
Chemical Engineer, working in petrochemical field now, but some how we
persuaded in different fields recalls Prageet. |
| Furthe in my early days of industrial life, Mr M. C. Garg the Production
manager of the plant and senior Supervisor Mr Tejveer Singh choudhary has
given me the flare to handle manpower and their immense experience handling
production floor pave the path to understand the basic needs, deeds and
psyche of fellow workers, says Prageet with tears in his eyes as the sudden demise of Mr Arun jain on 22nd aug 1996 made him orphan 2nd time in life
after his father Dr. Padmakar Sharma's sad demise on 4th aug 1987 in
a train accident, when he was merely of 17 years old. The
Creative and philanthropic aspect of this work is well balanced off with
proper accounting and auditing by my Charted Accounted cum friend Mr
Rajeev Bansal. |
| With the divine blessings of
parents, Mushkis started flourishing in the international fashion horizon
and started accomplishing its core objective to cater a quality, hygienic,
skin friendly and aesthetically valued products to the admirers and art
lovers in the globe. Thence started contributing in basic necessities like
health, education and home for the artisans in turn uplifting these socially
deprived class. |
| This product links two
extremes of our society, one the financially deprived craftsmen from all
religion, casts of rural India to the prosperous, fashionable consumer from
the developed countries like USA, Europe. By purchasing one or two designs,
the art loving people contributes in the daily earning of the artisan. |
| These products do not
recognize religion, cast, race or country. It possesses the creativity,
imagination, passion of an artisan who hand-crafts, beads and weaves his
warmth, fondness to adorn, to beautify, to embellish the people from other
parts of the world. Is it a mechanical process ? No, it is a spiritual
process. |
| It is an unseen spiritual bond
between the creator and wearer of jewelry. An artisan consistently puts his
thoughts, creations, and his soul in a design to beautify the persons who he
never goes to meet but gets back some remuneration to meet his livelihood .
That is how nature balances itself. |
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| Achievements.... |
"Business
not for money or status but for the bliss of common good for the associated
people and the achievement is in terms of satisfaction of the customer
through consistent quality and services" ............. Mushkis |
| With this vision Mushkis has
started its work in rural areas of India. These rural and age old masters of
craft do not know about production techniques and quality standards. in the
absence of any set standards, producing high fashion designs in bulk to
satisfy ever going demand of quality conscious upper market of developed
countries, a great challenge in it self. The lack of knowledge of using
hazardous materials in the artisans adds to the problem. |
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"The
illiteracy and the need to earn before learning anything are the major
obstacles to the advancement of this utterly unorganized cottage industry."............
Prageet sharma |
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| With a clear vision to
organizing this highly unorganized industry, we started documenting each and
every stage of the manufacturing. Setting quality standards for all the
intermediate steps of the process, we developed our own unique Quality
management system, M.R.P.M. (Mushkis resource and planning management
system) for manufacturing process. |
| A step by step training of
artisans and creating an awareness of skin friendly non hazardous chemicals
among them, has started reflecting in the end products. Time management was
the crucial point, for that logistic approach implemented among all the
production centers situated in the deep rural areas, which are inaccessible. |
| The scientific, logical and
systematic process control system can handle now the mass scale production
of the fashion product that too on time. A well documented chain assembly
system has been implemented at the production floor. With a consistent
rejection level (0.5 to 1 % AQL), mushkis products started
getting appreciations from the quality conscious overseas customers. |
| The efforts ultimately paid
off as an award of ISO 9001-2000 certification under the scope of
"designing and manufacturing of costume jewelry and handmade novelties". A
first in the country, India in its kind. |
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| Social achievements..... |
| Education... |
| A consistent and a dedicated
effort has been paid on the education of the artisans. One and half hour
class of Hindi English and Mathematics was mandatory in the initial days.
Some of them who were illiterate are working as a supervisor after having a
good understanding of production process and keeping a proper documentation
for the same. |
| Health... |
| To keep healthy and hygienic environment
around the village, a children's playground and a public garden has
been built and maintained with help of local artisans in one of our model
village production center. |
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| Work culture..... |
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well spirited team of highly talented artisans and dynamic executives is the
main resource and infrastructure of Mushkis. |
| * A team of young, dedicated and dynamic designers to understand
the product and the specific requirement of the customer. |
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| * The team is fully equipped with latest
technology to minimize the communication gap and have a good
control on the production. |
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| * These young designers create new
contemporary designs based on market predictions & counter sampling the
items given by buyers or other designers. |
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| * Established production centers in the rural areas. These centers are
fully equipped with all in-house production facilities and are
logistically networked along with the main unit at NOIDA to
produce bulk quantities |
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| * The
chain assembly system makes production easier and gives better
insight at the time of crisis. It also reduces the production time
and improves the quality. |
| *Well
documented step by step Quality checking is a must. At each step, the critical
parameters are inspected and gauged with calibrated instrument, and
documented properly. |
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| * Creating awareness among the rural artisans regarding quality and
production techniques is the key issue for us. Training craftsmen at
their doorsteps associates some great social challenge, but nothing can
come across one's pure, focused and dedicated efforts. Later this
education invariably puts confidence and creates more job opportunities
among these rural artisans. It enhances their creativity too. |
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| * A glass bead unit to cater specific demand of new design beads from the
overseas customers. The unit is in the Firozabad area where artisans are
living since medieval era and producing beads using old age typical
Indian lamp work style. |
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| * Qualified polishers, equipped with all protections take care of metal
parts. These fine polishers give mirror like finish on the metal
surface. All the safety measures have been taken care off to
provide healthy and safe environment to these polishers. |
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| * The desired thickness and finish of copper, alloy, silver and gold, can
be given by our own Micron Electroplating Plant. The quality and the
safety of the workers are the core objectives of the plating unit. Lead
free, Nickel free silver and gold plating is our USP. |
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| * To protect the lustrous finish of jewelry from tarnishing, a thin layer
of E-coat (Electrophoretic lacquer ) is given by the skilled persons.
Spray lacquering is preferred for the intricate designs. |
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| * A healthy and entertaining environment among the workers make them fresh
and enthusiastic. This reflects in their creativity. |
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