For two years, Manju balanced her regular job with her new-found passion. Once she gained confidence that her work was getting the due recognition in New Delhi and Mumbai, Manju gave in her papers and turned full-time to promoting chikankari and zardozi.

Finding skilled craftsmen was not enough. The problem of middlemen had to be solved. "It took me a year to win the confidence of the craftsmen in one village. They had to be made aware that I would give them a better deal than the one offered by middlemen. I also offered surety of payments."

Proof of the confidence reposed in her came when the craftsmen suggested the names of villages where others of their ilk continued to suffer. Today, Manju's label, Alankrit, has under its wings nearly 40 villages and employs countless craftsmen. "One woman working on a chikan sari would take six to eight months to finish the job and get paid Rs. 700 or thereabouts for it. I make six or seven women work on one sari, ask them to finish it in a week and pay thrice the usual asking price. This has benefited both them and me."

Life, Manju says, is a challenge with no room for stagnation. "One has to keep doing new things," she says. This is probably why, at an age when most people would sit at home and take life easy, Manju shelved the security of a regular job and plunged headlong into something that required constant innovation.