Project Whit. Metal Payal

Our workshop is located over on Jagdma Road in the Tedi Bagiya area, right near Jagdamba College. We focus on making white metal payals, which is a bit of a tradition in this part of town. It’s a dusty place sometimes because of the metal work, but it’s where we spend all our time. The machines are usually humming throughout the day as we try to finish the pieces for the local markets. We aren't a big factory, just a group of us working in this space in Uttari Prakash Puram. It gets quite hot in the summers, but we have some fans to keep things moving. People from the college often walk past our gate on their way to classes. We don't have a fancy showroom; we mostly just make the items and then they go out to the shops. It’s a lot of manual labor, checking the links and making sure the metal looks right before it's packed up. My uncle started this little project years ago, and we’ve just kept the same routine going since then. It’s a noisy street sometimes with all the rickshaws, but we like being in this neighborhood. It’s a no-nonsense type of place where everyone is just trying to make a living. We keep our tools organized as best as we can, though things always seem to get messy by Friday. We just keep crafting until the sun goes down and we head home.