Purulia Chhau mask and tribal-craft retail brand

Purulia is home to the GI-protected Purulia Chhau mask tradition and a deep Santhal and Bhumij craft base. The sharpened business leads with retail — a curated Chhau-mask and tribal-craft brand — rather than splitting effort equally with tourism, which becomes a year-two add. It stands on the Chau mask and folk-craft tradition atom and can extend into tasar silk and forest produce for textile lines. The model aggregates mask-makers and craftspeople into a tight, well-photographed SKU range — wall masks, decor, festival pieces — sold online and to urban home-decor and gifting buyers plus the Bengali diaspora. Honest constraints: artisan supply is the bottleneck (mask-making is slow, skilled and seasonal around festivals), GI provenance must be protected against imitations, and the craft needs design adaptation for contemporary interiors without losing its ritual character. Margin lives in brand, curation and authenticated GI origin, not volume. Start with a focused decor range, build reliable artisan payment and lead-time discipline, then layer in mask-making workshops and village heritage tours once the retail base is steady.