Sri Tirumala Handloom Tapes

Down here on Jakka Vari Street in Perala, things move a bit slower than the big cities. We are quite close to the Ram Mandir, so you can often hear the bells and the prayers while we work. Making handloom tapes isn't the fastest job in the world. It takes time and you have to pay attention to what your hands are doing. We’ve been at this for a long time. The shop isn't big, but it’s enough for what we do. Sometimes the humidity makes the thread a bit difficult to work with, but that’s just part of the weather here. People in the neighborhood know us. They walk by on their way to the temple and say hello. It’s a quiet life mostly. We don’t have any big machines doing the work for us; it’s mostly just the old ways that still work fine. The street can get a bit narrow when people park their cycles, but we manage. My family has been around this area for years. We aren't trying to be the biggest company out there. We just want to make sure the tapes we produce are decent enough for the people who buy them. It’s a lot of sitting and focused work. When the sun goes down, we close up the shop and head home. It’s a local life and we are okay with that.