Looking back, I don’t know how I survived and ran my family last year. There were times when I wanted to give up.

Usually, I am busy stitching school uniforms from April to May, and the earnings from these months would help run the household the whole year. Initially, I thought the lockdown would last only for about a week. However, I started to feel the pinch by the first week of April, as I struggled to feed my family.

When the government announced that the shops could be opened till 1 pm, a friend advised me to make facemasks. But I did not have money to buy clothes to make them. It was a relative who told me to use leftover clothes to make masks, which helped me to get through the initial days.

At that time, people had to depend on masks sold at medical shops at Rs 15 apiece and cloth facemasks had not come to the market. I started to sell masks for Rs 5 each, which attracted customers. Initially I sold about 30 facemasks a day, which went up to 100 as more orders started coming in. I even managed to employ a couple of persons, who lost business, to assist me.

Soon, I put up a board offering two facemasks free for every order to stitch a shirt, and four free with each trouser. I also took orders from several shops, including fancy stores. During that period, I made about 200 facemasks per day. Now with the lockdown almost ending, I am back to my usual business, slowly getting my regular customers back. 

(as told to R Sathyanarayana)