BTB: What inspired you to work with crochet as the main medium for your brand?

ANANYA: My mother who is also the co-founder of Kalaa was working with Indira Kalyan Camp, in an urban slum in Delhi, where women skilled in crochet and macrame were being given income opportunities. One day, she brought home a crocheted blouse made by our master trainer, Rita ji. I fell in love with it and posted it on Instagram around May in 2022, which got a lot of attention- and by August I started thinking about Kala as a social enterprise. At the time, crochet clothing wasn’t common in India, and people didn’t realize they could wear it. So we saw a gap in the market that we wanted to fill. 

As we expanded the project, we discovered that many women, especially in Bihar and UP, already knew crochet, as the skill is often passed down through generations, particularly in Muslim communities. In many homes, women make crochet items for bridal trousseaus, like thali covers or TV covers. Around Janmashtami, women make little crochet clothes for Kanhaiya (the idol). Whereas, in villages, we saw crochet cloths being used during wedding ceremonies to cover Matkas and Prashads—we saw its potential in the market. The essence of Kala is to provide women with flexible work-from-home opportunities and crochet felt perfect because it doesn’t require equipment or machinery. Women can sit with their babies on their laps—nursing and crafting at the same time. It’s a craft that blends seamlessly into their daily lives and often doesn’t even seem like 'work,' which can be beneficial in highly patriarchal societies where there might be resistance from husbands or household heads.

BTB: Kala is addressing the critical issue of women's employment through the Kalaa Sakhi initiative and you been able to impact hundreds of women across three different locations. Could you share more about this mission and the impact it has had on these communities?

ANANYA: One crucial aspect of working at the grassroots level is creating systemic change through workshops and training. We offer financial inclusion workshops to help women manage their bank accounts, savings, and inter-loaning. We also hold nutrition workshops to address issues like anaemia and iron deficiency, particularly important for pregnant women. These sessions may go unnoticed on the business side of things, but nurturing communities in this way creates lasting change. The impact compounds across generations, families, and villages, and that’s what we aim to sustain.

Although the impact is different in every community we work with, depending on the cultural and geographic context. We chad gotten a chance to collaborate with large organizations like Netflix and they invited us for the screening of Bhakshak. This exposure helped the women see the broader value of their craft. The direct economic impact has also been significant. One of the first things we noticed was that as soon as these women started earning, 100% of them enrolled their children in private tuition, using their own income to even provide private tutors. Now, their children have much bigger aspirations and aim higher—all while balancing caregiving and family duties. Stories like this fuel our mission to sustain Kala as an enterprise every day. In regions like Nuh, despite being India’s most backward district in Haryana and communally tensed, there is complete coexistence within the craft communities. In Neemrana, Rajasthan, where women are often seen in ‘ghoonghat’, our workshops are a release for them. They relax, chat, work, and sometimes even sing and dance And all of these have been known to bring women together for centuries, right? So, we create a space for that sisterhood. We have opened over 60 bank accounts for the women there—they have learned to read their passbooks and, for the first time, money coming directly into their accounts, separate from their husbands. We have seen men stand up for their wives during quality checks, encouraging us to accept the work. Craft has become a tool to tie communities together, uniting people through the shared creation of beauty and economic opportunity.

BTB: Ananya, you mentioned that your experience working with ASHA workers in Assam inspired your focus on women's empowerment. How has that experience influenced the ethos and operations of Kalaa Sakhi and Kalaa Store?

ANANYA: During this 10-day fieldwork in I was deeply inspired by frontline worker women (Anganwadi and ASHA workers) who as caregivers, would wake up each day, go from one river island to the next, set up camp, and provide care. In any emergency, they were the ones responding –also seen commonly seen in our healthcare system. Women tend to bring feminine qualities of compassion and care which allow them to truly connect with patients at the frontline. However, there are very few women at the leadership table as you move up the hierarchy. After this experience, I had a review meeting with a female IAS officer, the district collector. I was in awe of the way she led the team and infused these qualities of care and compassion in her leadership style and pushed the team to care for each individual patient’s life with dedication and passion. That’s when I knew: my goal in life is to ensure more women are in the workplace, contributing. When I think of Kalaa, it never feels like a charity project to me. Yes, we want to give women financial independence, but I know for a fact that women will always find a way to earn. What the world truly lacks is women in the workforce, bringing these feminine qualities of creativity, compassion, and care into the workplace.

Culturally, this became the ethos of Kalaa. When you visit a village workshop, you’ll notice everything slows down, and women work together in harmony. That harmony became the foundation of why gender is central to our work at Kalaa. It’s also why, both within our organization and externally, we prioritize compassion. Through our Instagram, stories, postcards, and products, we try to send love out into the world.

BTB: What are some non-commercial victories you have achieved that have helped your business?

ANANYA: Conceptually, tying communities together has been the most empowering—to be able to send our products abroad. That there is dignity for women now, from not earning anything or having exposure to products being loved by people and communities across the globe is quite fulfilling. Even when my friends buy Kalaa products and go on holidays it feels like a piece of me is with each of the products. Of course, the non-commercial victories have been about empowering women but at a very abstract level, being able to connect communities across time and space has just been a very beautiful thought to be able to sleep at night with.