Success is the immediate answer to hard work. There are no shortcuts to it. It is the result of preparation, uphill battle and learning from failure. Here is someone who firmly believed in these, and finally achieved success. Polio affected Suresh Babu, hailing from Kollam, was left disabled at the age of 27. However, he did not let the disability defeat him; instead he fought against all odds and succeeded with flying colours. At 47, Suresh Babu is now a successful entrepreneur and creator of handmade paper seed pens. He has formed a group of physically-challenged persons to make the pens. These paper pens, a good replacement to plastic ball-point pens, don’t just address the plastic menace, but also contain seeds that can grow into trees. Loss of forests is a major threat that the environment faces nowadays. Suresh is trying to do his bit to address the issue.
Environmental pollution is something that cannot be cured, but can be prevented to an extent. Suresh Babu has come up with the pen with this idea. Suresh says, “Students are the ones who buy pens frequently. They don’t buy a refill and use the same pen. Instead, they throw the pen away and buy a new one. It will be great if students start using this pen regularly.”
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“We buy a pen for Rs 10 and throw it away immediately after use. Those plastic pens add to the hazardous issue of plastic pollution. If we use paper pens instead of plastic ones, when we throw them away, they will degrade in the presence of some micro organisms in sand, rain and sunlight, and the seed inside the pen grows into a new plant,” Suresh explains his idea. Suresh has been in this paper pen business for the past one and a half years, and is receiving positive feedback. No idea can be developed without concrete support; in that sense Suresh is blessed because he has a team of 25 people from different districts to back him up to fulfil his dream.
The team gives training to a subgroup that contains 25 members again. “All the production process is done individually at each one’s house; they do not need to come anywhere. Since all the team members are from different districts, it is impossible to meet up every day,” Suresh says. He had done certain other businesses before the idea of paper pens occurred to him. He tried his hand in umbrella manufacturing, but it was a seasonal one. Later, he started producing cloth bags and finally he turned to the paper pen production.
The aim of paper pens is to enhance biodegradable concept. Now, the paper pens are available online at eMalhar, which shows how popular the product is. In one shot, these pens achieve recycling of paper, plastic waste reduction and tree plantation.
Suresh is really an inspiration for everyone who takes life for granted. There is no substitution to hard work; passion, preparation and practice made him perfect.
