Variety is often said to be the spice of life. If true, Chennai-based Eswara Screen is a uniquely delicious blend. Although traditionally a screen printer, as its name suggests, the business has benefited from hard work and creativity that K Eswar Kumar and his family has devoted.

Eswar says: "For us, it is not merely business but it is our passion which enables us to create a variety of screen printed stuff."

Humble beginning
Started in 1992, Eswara Screen has been engaged in commercial screen printing since 19 years. Now, six years ago, the screen printing firm has expanded its print offering to industrial screen printing, besides producing  complex and hybrid commercial printing jobs.

Eswar says: "We have clients like commercial artists, automobile spare-part manufacturers for front-panel overlays for test equipment machines and we handle all their print requirements."
Although the business got off to a flying start, thanks to a combination of service and quality, Eswar and his family had to work all through the day and night to meet deadlines.

"Our clients thought we operated from an impressive and huge printing plant, I’m sure of it. In fact, it was not exactly as my clients thought," says Eswar.

While the technology has moved on, the appreciation for the printing process remains the same. Eswar believes that screen is a complementary process that allows for a degree of flexibility that benefits the company’s largely trade customer-base, who are very demanding.

"Depending on the sensitivity of the product, we have to decide the process and the amount of efforts we have to put into," says Eswar.

Challenging jobs
Eswara Screen believes that screen-printing has high impact. Which is why, Eswar sees the sky as the limit for Eswara Screen operations. That’s how he saw applications increase. The company provides everything from visiting cards to high-end multi-colour complex overlays.

To enable the production, Eswara Screen uses the traditional method of screen printing. And yet, produces high quality screen print. Eswar says, "We pride ourselves in producing the right quality for our customers which create an impact. I know plenty of people talk that screen printing is down and out, but I just don’t see it like that. Our screen printing business is busier than ever." He says that no other process can come close to competing with screen for "bold solid gloss UV colours."

Award and records
The room in which Eswar does his printing is small but the jobs he produces has very high value. Eswar points out that it is the creativity that fuels his passion for screen printing and for this the screen printing firm has been receiving awards and has created records.

Eswara Screen won the PrintWeek India Screen Printer of the Year 2011 for its outstanding book printing job using traditional screen printing technology. Eswara sent in three miniature books of Mahatma Gandhi’s biography. The three were sized 5x5mm consisting 144 pages; 11x13mm with 124 pages; 10x12mm with 168 pages; and a 19-page palm leaf book of Hanuman Chalisa in 24x8.5mm size, which dazzled the jury members. Eswara’s manual work on the books, remarked a judge, only confirms that screen process is the only one which can do jobs that are not achievable with any other type of printing techniques. The cutting, book wrapper and binding was done manually. The four books along with a magnifying glass were neatly showcased in an intricately carved box.

Eswar says: "The job took us one year to complete, simply because of its size. To print with such a small size was a tough task. We had to cut, bind and wrap the books manually for which we used needles. Even to view the book we have to use the needle. We provided a magnifying glass to view the book."

Besides winning the PrintWeek India Screen Printer of the Year 2011 Award, Eswara Screen has been also recognised two times by the Limca Book of Records for its outstanding work in screen-printing.

A collector of sorts
K Eswar Kumar besides being passionate about the screen printing, also has special obssession: he loves collecting stamps, coins, currencies and old cameras of different shape and sizes. He also has special collection of books of which one of the books is more than 200 years old.

He has a collection of more than 1,500 different coins of different shape and sizes dating back to pre-Aurangzeb era.

Eswar is excited to show his collection of different currencies from all around the world and his special collection of more than 10,000 stamps.

Eswar says: "This is my hobby besides doing screen printing. In my free time, I like to roam on the streets looking for the stamps, coins or any antiques."

Eswar has a dream to build a small museum for his collections. But due to financial constraints he is unable to fulfill his dream. However, he doesn’t despair. He says, "Even if I cannot afford to build a museum for his collection, I’ll concentrate on my first love and that is screen printing."

Eswar seems determined to add to his growing range of spices and far from being overpowering, the signs are that variety, for this printer at least, is a recipe for success.