A dream of carving their own place in the world is driving quite a few young men and women to start their own set-ups, however small. Unlike entrepreneurs who set up companies and make them ever larger, or working professionals who hope to become managers one day, the aspiration of these young people is simply to have their own identity and a small place in the big, wide world.Arti, Nandini, Shimon and Swati are a few such people who have decided to take their future in their own hands and not depend on company jobs to make a living. For them, life is a little more than a hefty pay-package at the end of each month.

The journey from-Patna-to-Delhi

Finding Arti's house can be a little adventure. She lives in one of the narrow, winding lanes of Kotla Mubarakpur,-Delhi's hardware market. 'Look out for the red Vodafone hoarding,' she says on the phone. A narrow staircase leads to her apartment on the first floor.Her gem of a two-room apartment is at odds with its dusty surroundings. The inky blue cushions contrast well with the pale brown colour of the cane-sofa. A golden kite flutters on the wall as the fan gathers speed. Quickly, she settles on her rug, where her laptop is. 'This is my office, and the rug my chair.' Just across from her is a TV set connected to a pair of speakers. 'I watch movies and eat chips when I am deep in work.' There's a bowl of chips on the rug.

'I have just broken into a top sportswear brand,' she says, dusting the salt off her fingers. 'Sorry, I can't reveal the name, not just yet.' Her sportswear design for the final semester at National Institute of Design (NID) stood her in good stead. 'Serena Williams was my inspiration.' Arti has studied apparel design and merchandising at NID and was clear from the start that she wanted to design ready-to-wear clothes for the masses. The position at her new company was for a full-time designer, but she got the company to agree to her working from home. 'I like the sense of freedom that comes with it.'

This freedom Arti missed while working in large companies. Once, her former boss at a company she had interned in asked for a glass of water. 'He was condescending.' She brought him water, but gave him a piece of her mind, too. Now when she looks back, she attributes her 'wild' reaction to the time she was having at NID. 'It was traumatic. Because I was from-Bihar, people treated me as backward...I became very conscious of my accent, my pronunciation, my English...'

But life has changed for Arti. 'The day I realised that how you think of yourself is how people will think of you, people started taking me seriously.' Arti realised the potential of the kidswear market when she moved to Mirage Apparels in-Delhi-from Munch Design Workshop in-Bangalore. At Mirage Apparels, Arti designed clothes for Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network, but quit to start on her own. 'I want Arti to be a brand.' At age 23, she is doing well for herself. She drags the cursor to her work portfolio. 'This is the work I have done for Spencer's and Li'l Tomatoes,' she says with pride. She puts the laptop back on the rug. 'One has to be iron-willed and self-motivated to work from home.' There are months when money is in lakhs, and months when it's just a few thousand. It is important to manage your finances wisely, she says. Though black and white are her favourite colours, she loves the uncertainty in life. In school, she hated math and history but ended up studying history in college - Hitler is her favourite historical figure. After college, Arti enrolled for MCA at IGNOU, thinking she would go to-America, but then finally decided to follow her heart. 'I wouldn't want it any other way.'
 

The girl who reads faces
Nandini's kohled eyes light up when she looks at the painting on the wall behind her. 'It's my grandfather's sister,' she says, 'many say I look like her.' And, as she turns to her laptop on the table, 'faces are truly a glimpse of people's souls,' she says. Nandini's deep voice shows her singing and theatre training.

Nandini Hoon is a face-reader and her clients are aged between 20 and 60 years. She's aware that people give her curious looks when they come to her for the first time for a reading. 'It's my age.' She is 20 years old. But she doesn't blame them because until recently, she did not herself take her gift seriously.

Face-reading started as a way to gain acceptance in school. 'I was fat and my peers made fun of me. I suffered an identity crisis.' But being seen as odd didn't stop her from looking at the world with a gentle eye. She became curious about people. 'At home, I would analyse the faces of my relatives.' Once, she read a classmate's face. The girl was shocked with what Nandini revealed. 'I was more shocked than she was!' Nandini wondered how she could know so much about a person she knew so little about.

Class 10 was a turning point in Nandini's life. Quite suddenly, her family was in the midst of a financial crisis. The painful phase changed the way she looked at life. 'I grew up. More the challenges, the faster you grow.' But no one in her class knew what she was going through as she happily read their faces. 'Listening to their girlfriend-boyfriend problems cheered me up!'

She enrolled in BA History at Jesus &-Mary-College, an all-girls college in-Delhi. 'I wanted to be away from boys, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to explore life fully.' But she's quick to mention that she's waiting for her very own 'Raj' of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge fame.

As her reputation grew in college, friends and teachers persuaded her to become a professional face-reader. 'I didn't have the courage to take myself that seriously.' However, at the same time, she knew she wasn't cut out for a 9-to-5 job. 'I prefer working from home any day. Working in a company or for someone will block my creativity, though many feel working in a company is beneficial.'

Nandini's mother and her aunt, a tarot card reader, were great influences, but Payal, a close friend, was the one to give her the final push. 'It was my calling and I couldn't run away from it any longer,' she says as she fingers the rudraksh beads in the string around her neck.

Facebook helped spread the word and now, she gets at least 50 calls a day for appointments. 'I only want to motivate people,' says Nandini, pointing to the two green flowers on her business card. 'They represent beauty and optimism.' Her card mentions she's also a practising Nature Therapist. 'I help people open up their chakras for them to receive positive energy.'

She, on the other hand, gets her energy by reading people's faces. 'It helps me know the world better...' She's interrupted by Tubby, her golden-Labrador. 'His unconditional love heals me when I am distressed.' Well, his full name is Tubby Veer Hoon. 'And he's waiting for his Zaara.'

(Nandini can be reached at nandinihoon@yahoo.com)

Shooting for the stars

Shimon Sharif's day starts at night. 'My working hours are from 11 pm to 4 am.' While his wife, merchandiser with an export house, catches up on her sleep, he updates his website, indianshooting.com. It's-India's only website on shooting. A rifle shooter, Shimon was struck with the idea of a website when beginners would come up to him on shooting ranges and enquire about the sport. 'Information was scattered and it was virtually impossible for a beginner to find anything on shooting.' It took four months for Shimon to develop the site. 'A lot of legwork had to be done...' he says, touching his earlobe. He used to wear clip-on studs. 'I even did wheelies on the road to the Tughlakabad Shooting range.' But that was a long time ago, he laughs.

Paris Olympics silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore inaugurated the website in 2005. Within days of its launch, 2,500 people registered. Now there are 10,000 registered users. More than the success of the site, Shimon feels heartened when parents thank him for helping their children get started.

Traffic on the site got even better after Abhinav Bindra won gold at the next Olympics inBeijing. 'Shooting is a sought-after sport now.' He's expecting heavy traffic on the website during the Commonwealth Games 2010. 'India-is going to do very well this time.'

Though the website is yet to generate revenues, plans are underway. This time, Indian championships are using Suis Ascor targets: it's an electronic target used in international events. The software in the target can be patched up with the site, thus enabling surfers to view shooting scores on the website. Shimon's company TopGun Sports is in talks with prospective sponsors to buy this feature. TopGun is the parent company that organises spectator-friendly shooting events and provides training, besides running the website. But at the moment, Shimon's excited about 'running-target shooting.' Though a mainstay of many international events, it's yet to be played competitively in-India. He is the first Indian to train for running-target. 'This is my daytime job!' And he runs the entire show single-handedly.

Taj Mahal on boots
Swati Mehrotra is waiting on the steps that lead to her new store, Swatimodo. Two of her shoe collections, Seren and Serendipity, were showcased at the Delhi Fashion Week, 2009. She is 23, but her journey has been a hard one.

'When I would get ready for school my father would ask: 'Are your shoes polished?' He said shoes say a lot about you.' So when the time came to decide her future, Swati chose shoe designing.

But the decision came with much pain. Her father passed away when she was in Class 12 and her life changed. She was living in-Bareilly-then her elder brother was in college. An uncle in-Ghaziabad-called the family over, and Swati's brother gave up studies to support the family. But she did well in her boards. 'This spirit to fight, I learnt from my father.' Her eyes turn moist. Swati applied to Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) in Noida. It was a three-year course, where she specialised in Orthotics. In fact, she still makes shoes for people with special needs.

Swati constructed a little shed outside her house and employed two shoe workers from-Agra. With very little money - Rs 25,000 - she started work. 'I used cow dung to plaster the walls I put an old shaadi carpet on the floor and began working with my two workers.' Her first client came for a shoe repair job. 'I didn't mind it one bit.' Every customer was an opportunity. So when customers came, she showed them shoes she had designed. Gradually, people started coming to get shoes made and designed.

In the year 2007, Swati got her first major break. She designed shoes for the autumn/winter Wills Fashion Week. Though working for designers such as JJ Valaya and Zubair Khirmani had been a good experience, Swati was restless to have her own collection. 'No one knows who's made the shoes the models walk in on the ramp.'

It was time to take her work to the market. Just some weeks back, she opened a store inDelhi's 'boutique village' Shahpurjat, with her own savings. 'Now I have my identity.' She retails her collection through Anonym in-Hyderabad-and Nimboo Closet in-Bangalore. But she's mostly home, designing shoes. Her favourite is a pair of boots inspired by the Taj Mahal. 'People say the Taj looks beautiful in full moon, but I think it looks beautiful in the rains.' She captured the pristine white look of the Taj Mahal in fine thread-work of silver, green and red on the boots.

Now, 15 people work for her. 'Touchwood, business is sustainable,' she says. But then there are days when she doubts her abilities. 'I miss the balcony of my-Bareilly-house.' Her father encouraged her to step out into the balcony to be inspired by the world around her. 'My best designs have come from watching the world.'