'Woody Roots': Where Art, Identity And Entrepreneurship Find Expression

By Keerthi Prakasam

15 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org

At one glance, Soona Rachel and Neethu Saji are two accomplished, very attractive women. But there is much more to them than what meets the eye, that make them plain unique. Today, these women make a strong case to those youngsters fed up of their monotonous corporate life. Their quest to make a living on their own, exploiting their own skill set has now given birth to 'Woody Roots'- a bold venture by women into carpentry.

Breaking conventional norms and traditional mindsets, they hope to bring about a change in perceptions of many among us.

Entering their thirties, this Bangalore based couple have grown strong and took up this initiative to assert their own identity. They also came out of their closets at a time when nothing was known about the woes of the Indian LGBT community.

“When the Delhi High Court upheld our rights…striking down 377 back in 2009, many in the community felt safe to come out. We thought that the Supreme Court would follow suit. But the top court's order quashing the High Court’s decision came as a shocker”, says Soona.

An active member of the LGBT community in Bangalore, Soona says that her sexuality is now one among the many chapters of herself. But more importantly she believes that people are multifaceted; that they are made up of many beautiful dimensions. Sticking true to her belief, she herself is many things packed into one. Soona is a lawyer, a marketing professional, an artist, activist, singer, entrepreneur and a woman with a strong, beautiful vision.

Bidding farewell to her more than half a decade long corporate life around 2012, she looked out for opportunities to set up an independent livelihood. After her short stint with her friend’s project ‘Gourmet Express’, she has now successfully started off with ‘Woody Roots’, associating with her business and real life partner Neethu, who also is a resourceful carpenter.

“Most people want to have independent lives, most of them are skillful. It is only the courage to leap forward to exploit that skill set which makes all the difference”, Soona says. She admits that the corporate in itself has its own highs and lows - "Yes, when you work for a corporate, the company takes care of you. There are a lot of facilities you can use. But my problem was that I could not feel where the work I was putting in was going to. As far as I was concerned, it was intangible". Her interest in business, along with her love for creating and admiring beautiful things led to 'Woody Roots'. With this venture, Soona hopes to model a humane form of a corporate. One in which you are treated as human, not just a resource.

With the motto- "Artful, Functional and Affordable", they hope to create 'artistically alive wooden products" that are affordable as well as beautiful. With ‘Woody Roots’ they also hope to incorporate art on wood using various techniques like pyrography (technique of decorating wood or leather by burning a design on the surface) and painting.

Soona says - "I feel 'art' is nowadays a premium product, and that is not fair. Art is all around us, and to appreciate it, being rich should not be a prerequisite", she says. Soona also feels that much of the sum that we pay for brilliant art in fact goes to the middlemen, than the artists themselves. “We hope to bring about a system which is fairer to both the artist and the consumer”, she says.

Moving on to the ‘Woody Roots’ workshop, Neethu is on her feet with pine dust covering her hair and a mask to avoid inhaling all the dust from her wood work. As I talk to her on her experience with wood, I understand that she sees wood as a medium, a medium to express her art within.

“My father worked with wood, I grew up seeing him work with it. I was always fascinated by it.” Carpentry is one of Neethu’s many passions. Neethu is a successful camera-person in the film industry; she is also a brilliant carpenter, a documentary film maker, an artist, activist and also a very independent woman with strong convictions. She left home, coming out of her closet when she was 18. Determined that no other person born homosexual should have to go through such emotional perils alone, she associated with many NGOs like Sahayathrika and Sakhi towards the betterment of the LGBT community in Kerala.

Her fight for identity might have made her bolder, stronger and much more vocal. When she developed an interest in carpentry, she did not let trivial things like the fear of power tools and heavy weight, get into her way. "The idea that women can't handle heavy weights or power tools is plain stupid. A woman carries around her child till he/she is about seven? No tools we use in carpentry are heavier than that. It is just about the presence of mind, curiosity to learn that matters. Not the gender, never the gender. That's just a mental barrier", Neethu says.

“And to think of it, you can make the very chair you sit in is such a beautiful thing”, Soona adds. The gender cliché in the field is something the girls seem to be taking on with vigor.

“I spoke to around 100 carpenters to ideate and brainstorm over the past one year, and their response when they learn that women are going to share a workspace with them is very amusing”, says Soona. A very small percent were indeed excited, but as for the rest … “Some would say that is never going to happen while others would suggest that we do the ‘marketing’ part because we are women, while they do the manual labor. It is such a sad cliché”.

But for Neethu, being discriminated due to her gender is not a new thing. “I worked in the film industry which can be called nothing less than ‘male-dominated’. I have had to face or hear the same thing even when I work in the field with my camera. People used to be apprehensive about taking me to the field, outdoor because I am a woman, and that was so unfair.”

Nevertheless, stepping into a field previously unknown to them and facing challenges as they move forward- they brim with positive energy. To prove their case, they have with them their own creations, their products – which reflect in them the couple’s beautiful energy immersed in deep gradient pinewood.

As times are changing, so are the women of today taking on things that were earlier misjudged to be beyond their reach. But the change is not just limited to their gender. It is also about taking control of one’s own life, saying no to getting caught up in the corporate loop. It is their struggle to get out of the cycle and to take control of their lives that matters…. Sans the clichés of their gender, with a lot of courage and of course, their inherent grace.

Keerthi Prakasam is a freelance journalist