Short of seasoned craftsmen, Goa’s only designer shoemaker Edwin Pinto is looking out for options in jailbirds to run his business and bring back the past glory to his designer label ‘Janota Goa’
BHARATI PAWASKAR
Edwin Pinto has designed glamorous shoes for fashion shows and celebrities and even been the subject of ‘The barefoot shoemaker - a documentary by Italian film maker Beatice Dina. Having embraced this ‘looked-down-upon-craft’ two decades ago, his designer label Janota Goa offered handcrafted shoes to perfection. Today, however, he faces a gloom future.
Having started with eight guys, today, Janota Goa has very few craftsmen. In fact Pinto’s oldest craftsman Murari Satardekar is now 94 but is still passionate about his craft.
“His hands are not as steady as before and his vision is blurred too. Still, he wants to work, of course, under supervision. However, instead of coming daily, now he comes once or twice a week, travelling from Mapusa to Porvorim by bus. Old habits die hard, you know,” quips Pinto.
With Murari not being able to give the required output due to his age, Pinto is left with only one craftsman - Devidas Arlekar who is also in his 70s. “I am afraid, I have to close down,” worries Pinto whose production has almost come to a standstill. Pinto states that he did try outsourcing from Mumbai and other parts but was unhappy with the quality. He even tried to bring labour from outside, but that didn’t work either. His attempts to train local youth were futile.
“So finally, I zeroed down on training prison inmates in the art of shoe-making. I am hoping that the craft will survive and I visualise that someday, they can take the ‘Janota Goa’ legacy ahead. Fortunately the jail administration has shown much co-operation and identified five of the inmates at Colvale jail and permitted me to train them once a week,” states Pinto who has been training them for the past three months.
“It’s never too late for anyone to learn something new. Anyone can learn to craft a shoe. Hopefully the dream of starting a production unit would take wings inside the four walls of the jail. There is a market for our products and we can even lend our brand name ‘Janota’ to this production,” says Pinto whose only worry is the speed of the training process which is very slow and time consuming. “I wish I could make the training sessions thrice a week instead of once,” expresses Pinto keeping his fingers crossed.
And Pinto has observed that the inmates have been enthusiastic to pick up this skill despite one having a vision problem while another has trouble in moving fingers.
“Outside jail, nobody wants to embrace this art. As shoe making was never considered to be a respectful profession in our society, most are turning away from this vocation. There’s a negative attitude and stigma attached to this craft. If efforts were made to add some prestige to shoe making, more youth would embrace it gracefully,” feels Pinto.
All hope is not lost yet and Pinto still dreams to offer a glittering future in the art of shoe making. “Once the inmates at Colvale start production, I plan to start a different line of production. Once a sizable collection is ready, I hope to hold an exhibition of it and depending upon the response and feedback, I will chalk out my future strategy. Of course, there’s this selfish motive behind this whole exercise - that I will be equipped with more hands, but if we also look from their point of view, this creative indulgence could bring a difference in their own lives and sow some seeds of hope,” concludes Pinto.
