Keshewar has since skilled around six women in the art of creating dark chocolates, and infusing and packaging them without machines. Adopting indigenous flavours was a conscious decision, he says: “Barley is a staple in Ladakh, and we loved its pairing with chocolate. We sourced Kashmiri almonds and Himachali walnuts. We chanced upon pink salt while scouring for ingredients.”

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While they got off to a slow start in June, by October they had launched five flavours, and during Christmas-New Year’s, they were sold out. But all of this wasn’t cakewalk. “I come from a middle-class family, and ours is a hand-to-mouth existence. Ditching a corporate job, and starting my own business at this time took a lot of convincing, but my parents backed me up, and now we’re making profits,” he explains. The plan is to set up a cooperative model to generate jobs for women. “I want to scale it up slowly and remain independent, so we are running a crowdfunding campaign.”

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