Many of us use ‘Chindi’ as a slang word to signify something worthless or something useless. Chindis, actually, are the small shredded pieces of extra cloth which are cut off at a tailoring shop and often just go into the garbage pile. I had never imagined to see it get converted into this – meditation cushions!!
Here’s how the story unfolded…
One day, Sneha and Sheetal turned to me and said, can we bring some chindi from the tailoring shop nearby? We want to make some cushions out of it. Despite being a little surprised, I simply said yes to them.
Soon, they went out and carried back 2-3 heavy gunnies (jute sacks) filled with chindi. They came and dumped it all out in one corner of our room and started cleaning and segregating the unwanted stuff in it. They were doing it diligently and intently.
After cleaning it, they went to the tailoring sir at Dongri, and asked him if we could make some cushions out of this cloth. And our condition was that it should be made by the children, under the guidance of the sir. He promptly agreed and soon started working on it. Within a few days, we had the first batch of 10 cushions ready! Then, he suggested that we get some full cloth for creating covers for these cushions so that they can be washed if it gets dirty. It was a very practical and important suggestion, and we did just that. Then, these girls brought another few bags of chindi for the next batch of cushions and more cloth for the covers. In about 10 – 12 days’ time, we had a full set of 25 cushions made, with covers, ready to be used. :))
The superintendent, the magistrates and others were all happy to see this initiative and the work done by the tailoring sir and kids. We also used these cushions during our first staff session, and even there we announced that these were made by the tailoring sir and kids. Everyone was impressed and appreciated the sir right there. And there were a lot of positives that came out of this small project – the tailoring sir felt good about the work he had done and got appreciated for it, the kids who made it also felt proud to see their creation being used in different spaces, people at the home had a sense of novelty and positivity, and for Sheetal and Sneha it was a successful project! Invisibly, the tailoring lady who gave us the chindi was also involved and she also got to know how cloth from her shop was being used in such a positive way. While we were reflecting, we silently prayed that may everyone involved in this entire process reap the fruits of this noble act.
I was a third person for this project and was very impressed to see how it manifested. I felt very proud of Sneha and Sheetal – their creativity, their efforts, their dedication, their ability to engage various stakeholders and give them the credit and their willingness to fail; all of this was on display during this project. We are very happy that we now have these cushions which we can use, and we all felt contented, grateful and joyous. There was a lot of wealth that was created from these chindis… not just materialistic, but multiple forms of wealth! 🙂
Love Joy Peace
