Aarathi Plates

You’ll find us at 39/16 A in the Manikandan Flats on A.P Road First Lane. We’re right in the middle of Choolai, Chennai. It’s a very local spot, near the Nehru Stadium and the Choolai Post Office. Aarathi Plates is a home-grown business. We don't have a storefront on the main road. We work out of our flat because it’s easier to keep an eye on the delicate work we do. We specialize in making decorated plates for weddings and other traditional functions. It involves a lot of glue, glitter, and tiny beads. Sometimes my fingers are covered in adhesive by the end of the day. We’ve been in Choolai for many years. This neighborhood is old and busy, and we like it that way. Most of our orders come from people in the community who know our family. We don’t do any big advertisements or have a marketing team. We just do the work and hope people like it. Chennai weddings can be very specific about traditions, so we make sure we get the colors right. The heat here can make some of the materials tricky to work with, but we’ve learned the tricks over time. It’s a quiet business, mostly just the sound of the fan and the radio while we work. If you need plates for a function, you just walk down the lane and find our door. We’re usually there working on something new for a client.