After completing Bachelor of Engineering from Tamil Nadu, Siddharth Mohan came to New Delhi for 91 day-long internship. He had no clue that these three months will entirely change the mission of his life. During the internship, Kiran Bedi addressed them as a guest lecturer.
The talk had such profound impact on Siddharth that he expressed his desire to join the Anna Hazare’s Lokpal Bill agitation along with Kiran Bedi. Upon joining the movement, Siddharth was assigned the task of collecting important information to support the movement. He did his job with great zeal and sincerity.
While working for Anna Hazare, Siddharth heard about khadi cloth quite often from people around him and learnt about its deep association with Mahatma Gandhi. With time, Siddharth felt a growing attachment towards khadi.
In the meantime, he decided to pursue law as a career, after three unsuccessful attempts to clear the civil service examinations. But one day, Siddharth saw a denim version of khadi at a khadi store in Mumbai and loved it. He then started gathering information on denim khadi and decided to make it by himself. He found that his friends also love the clothes made of this fusion material. His attire also received a lot of attention on social media when he shared his photo in Khadi jeans.
Seeing such craze for khadi versions among people, Siddharth planned to lauch a startup on the same. He borrowed Rs 30,000 from his mother and started an online portal called DesiTude. Riding on the back of social media, DesiTude started getting a good number of online orders. The brand makes various kinds of clothes made of khadi, including jeans, kurti, skirts, and more.
In a special conversation with KenFolios, Siddhartha laughed while mentioning the initial days of struggle. “There was no problem as such as my friends helped me a lot. One of my friends made the company logo free of cost. Many of my friends also helped me to start the website. This way thing started to shape up with help from everybody.”
Siddharth does not have any outlet or showroom in Mumbai as of now, but there is a lot of demand for his brand through out the country. Currently, Siddharth is targeting the customers only in India, however he has plans for overseas expansion.
Using khadi to make a statement has been an old concept for long. With time, the younger generation gradually lost interest in khadi clothes. Thanks to Siddharth, the trend is changing now and he provided this area the much-needed oxygen. Siddharth has also provided a new dimension to this traditional attire in the form of denim khadi (Jeans).
At the same time, he is spending 10 percent of his earnings on distributing sanitary napkins for the orphanage girls. Interestingly, he uses the workers of his organization as models for the brand DesiTude. They act as models during brand advertising and no outside models are recruited. Siddharth’s passion for work and the ability to think out of the box made this endeavor a success.
Siddharth started his journey as an engineer, then engaged with the Lokpal Bill Movement, prepared for the civil service examinations, studied journalism, and law, and then launched a startup in the form of DesiTude. The life of Siddharth is truly an inspiration for the new generation. It teaches us that people can make their hobbies and passion their career, even after failing in many areas in life. Such efforts never go in vain. One only needs to have the dedication and will to succeed.
