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| Anoop, Anu Industries, Kumbham, Kannur |
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As a child, Anoop had seen the traditional methods of manufacturing beds using silk-cotton at Bodinayakanur near Madurai, where his father was employed. Later, as a young man, he began by producing a few baby beds and selling them to local customers and shop owners in Kannur. Soon his pure silk-cotton mattresses became the most sought after commodity in the Malabar area.
Anoop is now all set to export his ‘medicinal beds’, as he calls them, to the Gulf market soon. And the little known Anu Industries, established by him with a small bank loan at Kumbham near Koodali has already embarked on an expansion plan.
The ‘carding system’ of making mattresses, which he learned during his Madurai days, helped him establish one such machine near his house at Kumbham. He brought some workers from Tamil Nadu and trained them to process lumps of silk-cotton using it. His unit became a boon to those who were in possession of old silk-cotton mattresses fallen into disuse, for the machine could make use of them as raw materials. Barring a lean patch when he had to close down the unit for a few weeks due to the exorbitant price of even locally available silk-cotton, the enterprise has been growing steadily from strength to strength.
Though at present the raw material is brought mainly from Tamil Nadu, he plans to get the same from the villages here, where there are plenty of silk-cotton trees (Bombax Malabaricum). “This could be a better source of income for the villagers also,” he feels.
Anoop hopes that the foreign customers would prefer to use silk-cotton mattresses due to reasons of health also.
Anoop with his wares
Courtesy: P.Divakaran, New Indian Express, February 24, 2004
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