Beyond Busy

Social entrepreneur Nand Kishore Chaudhary is no stranger to working from home. He started his career selling shoes in his father’s shop, and declined the offer to join a nationalised bank to strike out on his own. Now he runs a business working with over 40,000 rug weavers, spanning over 700 locations and selling to 60 different countries. NK formed his company, Jaipur Rugs, with a $200 loan from his dad, but was struck by the class system in India that drew strict divisions between his cast and the cast of his weavers. When he began to expand outside of Jaipur, he was advised against working with a Gujarati tribe. 'People can beat you, people can kill you. They are the tribal people, and they are not very welcoming to the outsider.' Undaunted, NK sought advice from a friend and mentor, who encouraged him to work with the tribe, but with love, compassion and empathy to counteract the experiences of exploitation the tribe had faced in the past. NK ended up staying for nine years, training fifteen thousand Guj