The ingredients for the success of any business venture are good raw materials, better finished products, and most importantly the best entrepreneur who can successfully sell the finished products.

In Manipur, especially in the field of handloom and handicraft, raw materials and end products are aplenty. This prolificacy in fact ensued from the customary practice, in almost all the ethnic communities residing in the state, of young girls to learn the fine arts of weaving from their mothers – a tradition which is fast falling out of practice.

We also have generations of entrepreneurs who have been selling our handloom and handicrafts products in the domestic market apart from all other essential commodities. These are the women in the various Ima Keithels spread across the state.

Today, we see a new generation of women entrepreneurs emerging – women who are attempting to make their mark in the outside markets, women who are making the presence of the state handloom and handicrafts felt in the national and international markets. One among them is Langpoklakpam Subadani Devi residing at Wangkhei Tokpam Leikai in Imphal East District.

Subadani was born at Huikap Mayai Leikai as the second among five siblings – two brothers and three sisters — to Laitonjam Nawa and Sanahanbi. Her father Nawa was a carpenter by profession while mother Sanahanbi was involved in small businesses before shifting to vegetable selling in her later days.

Subadani did her primary schooling at Andro high school till Class IV, and then shifted to Angtha High School where she studied till Class VIII. She left school after that. At eighteen years of age, she got married to Langpoklakpam Ibopishak, a government employee.

“I was called a spinster at that time, as then girls used to be married off at a very early age,” she recalls with a smile. Subadani and Ibopishak have four surviving children – one daughter and three sons.

As was the tradition, Sanahanbi too used to weave clothes and it was from her mother that Subadani learnt the fine arts of weaving the traditional clothes items such as khudei and phanek.

After her marriage she continued to weave making mostly khudei and phanek, and later on the diaphanous upper cloth that is the ultimate ornament of Meitei women – the Wangkhei phi. But this was a part-time profession for her – something which she did when she has some time left over from her more active work of looking after her children and home.

In the early 1980s, Subadani started investing more time and energy into her handloom works. She even brought in many young girls and women weavers and formed a co-operative society in her locality.

At first she had a steady entourage of young girls and women weavers working on the looms installed in her house. However the initiative didn’t work out as expected. Many of the young girls got married and left the work. The young married women too found the responsibilities of caring for their children and family too time and energy encompassing, and thus found it more feasible not to work away from their homes.

Thereafter, Subadani started on a new venture wherein the women weavers could weave and also fulfill their familial responsibilities simultaneously. She started providing raw materials, money and other essential inputs to the women, and the women in turn worked on the looms in their own houses. The designs were however decided by Subadani.

The new arrangement worked successfully and today Subadani has a steady supply of end products waiting to be sold, and an equally steady stream of exclusive customers who come to her house to buy the items of their choice.

Apart from that, she also participates in exhibitions and mela all over the country to showcase and sell her products. “Now I am planning to showcase my products in Mumbai, talks are on, let’s see,” she said sanguinely.

She also used to send her products to Delhi for sale but has discontinued now. “There is a market for our handloom products outside the state, but I am unable to send as it requires a bigger capital, but I am only working with a small rotating capital,” she adds.

Commenting on the pricing of the handloom products, she commented, “The raw materials, that is the yarns, especially the muga silk yarns, are brought from outside the state which makes it more expensive. Added to this is the fact that these clothes are hand-woven and hence time consuming. Therefore the end product will obviously be costly.”

Subadani got the national award in 1993 for her innovative lamthang khuthat design on Wangkhei phi. She also won the Manipur state merit award in 1992.