Hand Mate Khat & Kadaie

Hand Mate Khat & Kadaie is right there in Nokha, Bikaner, tucked away near the bus stand in V/P Uttmamdesar. If you know the area, it’s a busy spot because of all the people coming and going from the buses. We spend a lot of our time on embroidery and working on traditional khats. It is manual labor and it takes a lot of patience. You can usually hear the sounds of the street while we work. The needles and threads are everywhere in our small workspace. Sometimes we sit on the floor to get the angles right on a larger piece of furniture. It’s not the kind of work you can rush through. We get a lot of locals who want something specific made for their homes. Being near the bus stand means we see a lot of different faces every day. The dust from the road is a bit of a problem, but we just cover the finished pieces with sheets. We don’t have any big signs or bright lights. It’s just a place where things are made by hand. Sometimes the power goes out and we have to move closer to the door to use the natural light. It’s a bit cramped when we have a lot of orders, but we manage. My family has been doing this kind of work for a long time. We just keep our heads down and finish the tasks.