With handmade personal care products, stationery and 100 varieties of tea, Vrksa LifeSpace aims to create a sustainable eco-system

 IT professional S.K. Packiyanath and his wife Deepa wanted to build a life completely different from what they were used to. They hoped to spend the rest of their lives as close to Nature as possible; live sustainably in an environment surrounded by people with similar interests. Back in Chennai, their friends R. Purusothaman who was in the IT sector himself, and his artist wife Kamini, had already set up a base — Vrksa LifeSpace.
It all began two years ago in a narrow bylane in Porur. Purusothaman initially started Vrksa as an organic store. Much like the tree, its namesake, Vrksa branched into various directions. Today, the store has everything one would need to make the switch to a sustainable lifestyle — from books and magazines on environment, organic food, about 100 varieties of tea, and natural personal care products.
“Most of our decisions have been impulsive,” says Purusothaman, seated in their café. For instance, most people who visited ended up having long conversations with them at the store, which led them to set up a café that served tea with very less caffeine. Then there are books on organic farming and magazines such as Thumbi, that one can browse through, seated on the cane chairs overlooking a lawn.
In an adjoining room, glass-fronted wooden shelves are lined with artefacts from various parts of the country that Purusothaman sources directly from the artisans. He has a story to tell about each item he has collected. “This is Bidriware from North Karnataka. It’s made of a zinc alloy that’s sourced from around a port in the area. But the precise location of the source metal is a closely-guarded secret,” he explains, showing an elephant with golden highlights.
There are marapachi dolls, Channapatna dolls... among the rarest is the ‘satti bommai’, a rocking doll made of clay, a variety that’s almost extinct. “The dolls are made in Thanjavur and Chengalpet. The craft, once practised by an entire street, is now confined to a handful of families,” he adds.
While Purusothaman is the traveller, Deepa is the mind behind the JivaVrksa range of personal care products.
She says the recipe for the herbal powder-based face, hair and body washes, and face pack have been put together with help from locally-sourced knowledge from her ancestors. “We initially tried them out with friends,” she explains. “The products were launched after one-and-a-half years of research.” A couple of old women from the neighbourhood come in to pack the powders in artfully-done brown packets every day. “The energy that they bring in is something else,” says Purusothaman.
MayaVrksa, the handmade range of notebooks, journals, folders and passport holders, among others, is yet another of their ideas that was sparked by conversation. “We were once reminiscing about the sweet smell of notebooks and how we used to bind books by hand as kids,” says Deepa. This triggered their interest in making stationery. “It’s quite simple. All it takes is paper, thread, and a stapler. We thought we might inspire people to make their own writing material,” adds Purusothaman. “Paper has so many possibilities. It can be recycled and reused in various forms.”
Vrksa LifeSpace is located in a building constructed in the Laurie Baker method. It recently opened out a room in the building for workshops and discussions. “We’ve had families who’ve completely switched to sustainable living share their thoughts, people who are into environmentally-conscious work, such as cloth bags, hold talks...” says Purusothaman. Ultimately, this is an atmosphere that Purusothaman and team want to build.
But as Vrksa evolved, so has their idea of sustainable living. “We now want to move away from the city to a space where we can work at our own pace and leisure,” says Deepa. “We want to create products end-to-end, for that’s what sustainable living is all about.”
In the coming years, the two families plan to move to a rural set-up, raise the herbs needed for their personal care products and make handmade paper from scratch for their MayaVrksa line. Adds Deepa, “This way, we needn’t depend on anyone but ourselves. We can satisfy our needs and live in tune with Nature.”