For Kirti Goel, a teacher’s advice to try something artistic helped her lead a multi-crore company, preserving a dying art form and supporting artists.
At 28, she is the founder of ‘P-TAL’ — an Amritsar-based business that sells traditional handcrafted kitchenware, dinnerware, and tableware made of brass, copper, and bronze.
As Kirti studied design, she researched various crafts and found ‘Thathera’, a UNESCO-certified art.
Thathera craft involves creating brass and copper kitchen items by hand. The word ‘Thathera’ means ‘the beater’, which describes the process of beating the metal into shape.
She realised that this art form was fading away because people thought it wasn’t in demand. “It was a matter of pride for me to save the dying art of my country. So, I took a leap of faith and lunged into starting P-Tal in 2016,” she says.
Kirti shares that people assumed Thatheras would be hard to find because many had transitioned to other jobs. When brass and copper became more expensive, many shifted to producing aluminium items, which led to a decline in demand for traditional metalwork.
Working with P-TAL has since significantly improved the artisans’ earnings from about Rs 20 per hour to Rs 150 per hour.
“I observed the artisans’ work and how they were making utensils, and I realised something important: when you need to innovate a craft, you have to immerse yourself in it completely,” Kirti says.
Currently, the company produces more than 80 kitchen and dining products, like flat plates used for kneading dough, drinking glasses, tumblers, brass ladles, and copper baking trays.
It has its major customer base in states like Maharashtra and Karnataka, and collaborates with about 50 families of artisans, earning a turnover of Rs 36 crore per annum.A craftsperson working with P-TAL can earn between Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000 a month.
Looking back at her journey, Kirti says, “While I was not sure for a very long time what I wanted to do, I was sure that I wanted to do something out of the ordinary.”