S. S. Leather

S. S. Leather is based at No: 95 Nagalkeni on Thiruneermalai Road in Chrompet. If you’ve ever been to this part of town, you know it’s known for leather work. We are just one of the small shops along the road. The building is old, and you can tell we’ve been working here for a long time by the way the floor looks. We have big tables for laying out the skins and cutting them into pieces. It’s a messy job sometimes, and the smell of the leather is everywhere, but we don't mind it anymore. It feels like home to us. My nephew helps me with the heavy lifting because those hides can be quite heavy when they come in. We don't have any air conditioning, just a couple of big fans that move the air around. On hot days, we open the back door to get a breeze from the alley. We don't do any big advertising. Most people who come to us found us because they saw the sign on Thiruneermalai Road or heard about us from someone else in Chrompet. We just keep our tools sharp and our heads down. There is always a lot of scrap leather on the ground by the end of the day, so we spend the last half hour cleaning up. It’s a simple routine, but it’s our routine and we’ve stuck to it for years. It is just how things go for us here.