“I have been doing the bamboo work right from my childhood. We do different kinds of artwork with bamboo — right from the wedding mandaps, home decor, baskets, chairs, stools and many more. It’s our ancestral skill We shifted here to Hyderabad from Rajahmundry to make a living after our marriage.

I had studied until class 7 but education wasn’t a priority back then in our family so they taught me how to make different kinds of bamboo items, hoping it’d be a good profession for a living.

Yes, I must accept that this was a good profession to practice before Covid 19 pandemic but we were severely impacted due to lack of orders ever since Covid 19 struck the country. We had suffered major losses due to the impact of unprecedented lockdowns. We literally had to rebuild everything from the scratch. Both my wife and I work for at least 12-13 hours a day to make our ends meet. We are just hoping for better days to come in the upcoming year so that we could continue this age-old craft.”