If you've ever seen that bizarre 1970s Bond movie "Octopussy," you've already had a glimpse of Udaipur, a desert city built around lakes in the middle of Rajasthan, India's gateway state to Pakistan and the Middle East, via the mountainous Thar Desert. Udaipur made its way into the pop culture annals when Roger Moore snuck into the watery Lake Palace (above) to catch Maud Adams and her cult of octopus-worshiping international jewel smugglers.
They love this movie here. Every third restaurant you see has a nightly showing. But instead of watching an old spy flick tonight, I walked a few back alleys in the city and had a serendipitous run in with a micro-artist (if that's a profession).
It was getting late and I was on the way back to my hotel while walking through a small moon-lit Indian neighborhood, crisscrossed by narrow streets with open sewers and the occasional meandering cow. One doorway stoop with saloon style swing-hinge doors was lit up and a silk prints painter, of about thirty-five, was painstakingly putting the finishing touches on small multi-colored animal prints, with beautiful calligraphy style brush strokes and bold earth tones.
I stopped and stared for a moment and he caught my glimpse, quietly motioning for me to come inside and take a look. This wasn't you typical tourist cat-call, he could barely be disturbed from what he was doing - at the same time, he realized he had an audience. I watched him work for another five minutes, then inquired about some of his small prints, eventually buying a beautiful blue one for all of $5.
After our transaction I asked him more about his business, moving back and forth from Hindi to English. He told me really only had a single sales channel, essentially a middle man who bought his paintings for about $5 and sold them to tourists at the nearby palace for roughly 5-6 times that amount. When I asked this artist why he didn't do the tourist selling on his own, he told me that he didn't have the capital required to open a shop downtown (about $2,000). In my best attempt in Hindi I asked if he had ever gone to a bank for a loan. "Paperwork," he replied in heavily-accented English, "I don't have it all."
Any microfinance organizations opening up in Rajasthan? If so, I think I've got your first client, B.L. Singh, profiled below...
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