The city of Lakes

While we were still in the bus on our way to Udaipur, we called up Shreedavy in Mumbai and asked her to find us a hotel in Udaipur and book our stay online. Fortunately, Shree had a friend in Udaipur, Megha Parekh, who helped us with the hotel bookings. After checking in to the hotel and freshening up, we called up Ashraf to check his availability for a meeting. We then got to know that he was not in town, and would be back the next day.

So we asked around and discovered about Suresh Sharma. He used to paint trucks but had changed his profession due to lack of work. We called up Suresh and he came to meet us at Transport Nagar. Later he also took us to his house to show us some of his work samples. Suresh had quit painting trucks and started making sculptures using thermocol (a synthetic aromatic polymer made from monomer styrene). His work for some of his clients was amazing. We spoke at length about his work. Though our conversation with him, we realized that he had been doing great work for very less money. He deserved much more. We also shared some business ideas with Suresh and encouraged him to expand his work beyond Udaipur. Next time you are looking for a sculpture or a set design made out of thermocol, please do consider finding out about Suresh Sharma from Udaipur. Trust us, you’ll love his work.

Suresh was kind enough to drop us off to the next local bus stand. And then we called up Anwar (Ashraf‘s brother) and asked him if could meet him that day. Anwar was free and so we reached his workshop and spent a couple of hours talking to him about his work and story. Anwar has a workshop in Udaipur and he does the maintenance and painting work for buses and trucks in Udaipur. His brother Ashraf on the other hand specializes in the writing that goes onto the trucks. It was a family business, and they had learned the traits from their uncle. Anwar showed us the busses in his workshop that were ready to be painted. He also showed us a truck, which had come back for a repaint job. In the evening, Anwar dropped us off to our hotel and told us that Ashraf would meet us at our hotel the next morning. Anwar also mentioned that Ashraf was supposed to do some writing work on a truck the next day, and we could document the whole process while taking his interview.