A stitch in time makes this tailor a cut above the rest

There is no new fresh work for Shanta Narona, a tailor at Talaguppa in Sagar taluk, due to the lockdown. However, he is as busy as ever. He puts to use his time, money and skills to stitch face masks, an essential in the fight against COVID-19.

The service of local police in maintaining law and order and distributing food kits to the poor motivated him to serve people in whatever way possible to him.

When he came to know about the necessity of face masks to prevent the spread of the disease, he decided to give it a try. Soon, he started stitching three-layer face masks. His movement is restricted due to a physical disability. His friends joined hands in distributing the masks. In the past one month, Shanta has made over 3,200 face masks and donated to people who can’t afford to buy them. He has spent over Rs 30,000 from his savings on this.

Narona purchased cotton cloth by paying Rs 90 per metre. Around 65 metres of cloth was used to prepare the masks.

He spends four to five hours a day stitching face masks. Now that the word has spread, people come to the shop to collect the same. “My shop is open from 8 am to 12 noon only every day, due to the lockdown. Later, I continue the work at home. My wife Mary Narona has been helping me in preparing the masks,” Narona said.

While people in Talaguppa, Guddemane and some other areas of Sagar taluk have already been covered for the supply of masks, there has been a growing demand for these cotton masks. The unavailability of masks in rural areas and lack of training in preparing masks at home have made his service all the more important in the first one month of the lockdown.

However, Narona says he may not be able to continue the service for long due to financial constraints.

Talaguppa gram panchayat member S Krishnamurthy Soona said that apart from giving away masks, Narona was creating awareness among the rural people about the importance of wearing face masks to protect themselves from the virus, thus promoting their use.