Ganpati Knitters

Our units are No. 44-45 in the DSIDC Sheds at Sangam Park. It’s near Rana Pratap Bagh, so it’s a well-known area for this kind of work. The sheds are basically big metal boxes, which means they get freezing in the winter and like ovens in the summer. We have the knitting machines lined up, and they make a rhythmic clicking sound that you stop hearing after an hour or two. It becomes like background noise. There’s always lint in the air, floating around like tiny bits of snow. We wear old clothes to work because everything gets covered in wool fibers anyway. The space is a bit cramped because we have to store the yarn cones and the finished sweaters and cardigans. We don't have a showroom or a front desk. If someone wants to talk to us, they just walk into the shed and find us by the machines. We spend a lot of time fixing the needles or untangling the thread when it snaps. It’s hard on the eyes, especially when the sun goes down and we’re working under those buzzing fluorescent lights. We don't use any fancy software for our designs; we just know what works and we stick to that. Most of the people working here live nearby, so we walk home together when the shift ends. It’s a humble setup, but we’ve been running these machines for a long time. The floor is always a bit oil-stained around the machines, but we try to keep the knitting area as clean as possible for the yarn.