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Later that year, he left the job at the factory and started a workshop for making motor windings, in partnership with a friend who knew a little about making motors.
     
    “As it turned out, he knew very little. The first batch of motors burned up on their very first use at the factory that had ordered them.” The business incurred heavy losses and had to be shut down after six months.
     
    Mansukhbhai then started a shop to sell sweets and snacks (bhajiya). This venture too ended unsuccessfully within six months, leaving Mansukhbhai in deep financial trouble. He was forced to approach moneylenders.
     
    “I asked a few lalajis for a loan of50,000. Because I did not have anything to offer as security, they weren’t so keen to lend, despite the high interest rate that they usually charged.”
     
    Somehow, the owner of the roof-tile factory came to know of his plight through one of the moneylenders Mansukhbhai had approached. “He told the lalaji about my honesty and even agreed to provide the backing for the loan in case of default. He personally came to my house along with lalaji to give me the much-needed50,000. However, I was away from home at that time, and my father, unaware of my financial situation, told them that we did not need to borrow money.
     
    Later, lalaji agreed to lend me30,000 at 18% interest, which I accepted.”
     
    With the money left after repaying earlier debts, Mansukhbhai purchased some land and decided to enter the family’s traditional business of clay pottery. His father, however, was against the idea, because he knew that there was little money to make in this profession. Mansukhbhai stood firm, for he felt that “it was at least a stable business and required less capital to start.”
     
    He started making clay flat pans (tawas), but due to his inexperience, broke about 25,000 tawas in the first year and ended up with zero profit. However, things gradually started to change for the better.
     
    By 1990, the family together made about 100 tawas a day, but the money they earned was barely enough for survival. Mansukhbhai wanted to scale up the business, but could not afford to hire additional labor. Therefore, he thought about making a machine to make tawas.
     
    For about a year, he experimented with several dies and finally succeeded in making a press for manufacturing clay tawas . This was his first in a series of innovations. The production increased from 100 to 1,000 tawas a day. Where Mansukhbhai would earlier sell tawas going from one village to another on bicycle, he now hired an auto-rickshaw.
     
    In 1992, Mansukhbhai introduced a new offering, a clay pot (matka) with beautiful colors and designs.
     
    “People found the shape and designs of the matka so attractive that we would sell whatever we produced almost as soon as we reached the market.”
     
    Mansukhbhai’s financial woes were now over, but he wanted to do something more than just making a living.
     
    On observing that the pond water that the villagers drank was quite polluted and often led to sickness, he started thinking about making a pot that could provide purified water.
     
    By 1995, completely on his own, he had made a clay filter with pores as fine as 0.9 microns. He put the filter between two clay pots to create a system that provided clean and cool water at a nominal price of100.
     
    The earthquake that rocked Gujarat in January 2001 also jolted Mansukhbhai’s hitherto comfortable life. The earthquake, measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale, is estimated to have left 20,000 people dead and another 160,000 injured. About 400,000 homes were destroyed and 600,000 people were left homeless, with the economic loss billed at about $5.5 billion.
     
    Since it was winter, Mansukhbhai had stocked 5,000 matkas for sale during summer. Where brick-and-cement houses could not withstand the earth’s fury, the clay pots too were shattered within seconds.
     
    A reporter passing through Wakaner saw the pile of shattered