The Hindu Business Line : Spiderwoman

Suhag Khemlani is the country's first woman professional window cleaner. Her company has bagged orders from prestigious high-rises in several cities.

Mumbai's Suhag Khemlani has embarked upon a career that has people literally looking up at her in disbelief. She is, of course, scaling great heights — literally so, in her line of work. For, she is the director of a company that's in the business of window cleaning in high-rises. After shifting base to Delhi, she is deluged with work.

"It was all for a lark, initially," she smiles. However, cleaning the exteriors of glass windows many feet above the ground is no joke. And she is India's first woman professional window-cleaner.

She has been certified `Spiderwoman' — that is, she has the expertise to slide down very tall buildings with a rope and pulley, and clean the exteriors. However, today it's her team that handles the cleaning, while she directs them from the ground.

But window cleaning was never on her mind when she was a psychology student at Mumbai's Mithibai College. The idea struck her at a trade exhibition where she visited a stall put up by a foreign company specialising in window-cleaning. "I thought to myself. `Why can't we do it?' But no one, including my family, took me seriously initially. However, my interest grew in the cleaning business and I gathered information about it. Once my final year exams were over, I announced that I was taking this up as a career and business."

Her insistence paid off and she went to London for a training course. "The training was tough. The first thing we learnt was that all cleaning work must be completed before the offices open. We were expected to be on the job at 4 a.m. whether it was raining or freezing."

The training involved such everyday chores as mopping, cleaning, polishing and emptying garbage bins. "I remember the first time I went up in a `cradle' to clean windows was on July 1, 1998. I went up to the 47th floor of the BBC Building in London." She was thrilled looking at London from that height. "Initially the men were amused and surprised to see a girl just out of her teens learning window-cleaning, but I was undeterred."

When she returned to India, she, along with her father, formed a joint venture with OCS group — a UK giant in cleaning services worldwide, with a £340-million turnover, 50,000-plus employees and a presence in more than 45 countries.

In fact, OCS lent considerable clout to Suhag's company, as its CEO Chris Crecknell came on its boardand brought along his expertise.

"I knew all along that this was a nascent industry in India, but the market looked set to grow," says Suhag.

Today, apart from Mumbai she has offices in Pune, Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi. Among her clients are hotels Leela Penta and Regent, the Wockhardt offices in Mumbai, Grand Hyatt and Sachivalaya in Delhi, and Raheja Towers in Chennai.

Her company also takes care of the International Technology Park (ITPL) building in Bangalore. "The ITPL building has the largest glass façade in the country and it is kept spanking clean by us."

Once when her men were cleaning a building in Bandra, Mumbai, she swung on the ropes on an impulse and went up to join them. A senior official at her company says, "I feel it is in her bones to be a window-cleaner."

However, Suhag's high point was yet to come. These buildings needed not just men descending on `cradles' or `lifts' with pulleys, but the services of `Spidermen'.

"Spidermen are those who slide down the exteriors with just a rope tied to their waists to clean the facades of high-rises. It needs tremendous guts, stamina and attitude to do that. We have seen whitewashers suspended from scaffoldings in small buildings, but it was unheard of at this scale and at such heights. I wanted to introduce Spidermen in India and in my company. And therefore I thought I must first become a Spiderwoman myself."

She flew to Bangkok for a gruelling training course and became India's first Spiderwoman. Even in the OCS group's 100-year history, there has never been a Spiderwoman. Today her company has a couple of `Spidermen' in almost every city in which they operate.

Suhag insists on applying international work and safety standards in her company. A trained kick-boxer and yoga enthusiast, Suhag loves travelling... though she now travels only for business.

"I travel every month to all the cities where we have our offices. I've shifted base to Delhi, as there is a lot of development here. My life's on a fast track," she says.

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