SUGUNA RANGASWAMY, DOLL MAKER

Meet Suguna Rangaswamy, 79 years old, born in Chennai. She got married at the age of 16 and moved to Kolkata with her husband where she spent close to two decades. Suguna always loved art and craft but actively started to make dolls and puppets in the early eighties (with a huge dose of encouragement from her brother who urged her to convert her passion into a small business). Although self-taught, Suguna was confident and ventured into professional doll making with a four day exhibition in Chennai. It was a huge success and after that orders started to come in. She has never actively marketed her business but word spread from one happy customer to another and Suguna always found herself with a pipeline of orders.

She confesses she cannot sit idle and in spite of facing temporary setbacks on and off due to her health, Suguna keeps herself busy. She recently learned crochet (when she visited family in Mumbai) and has since then been making a cute selection of puppets as well. Suguna has been associated with many ventures like By Hand From the Heart, A Hundred Hands, Tickles and Tales, and more.

Apart from this, Suguna loves a good game of Scrabble with her sister-in-law every week, teaches Shlokas to the young and old and travels across the globe to be with each of her  five children.

It was a pleasure speaking to Suguna and towards the end of our conversation, she gave me the apt way to conclude, she said,“Charmaine, age does not matter and you must never think that you are too old to do anything!”

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