K. U. Sodalaimuthu & Co.

Our place, K. U. Sodalaimuthu & Co., is situated at 428 Mettupalayam Road. This is a main stretch of road, so there is always a lot of movement outside. We have a fairly large setup here where we build machines. It is a lot of heavy iron and steel work. You can hear the sounds of welding and cutting from the moment we start in the morning. The workshop is the heart of the business. We have benches covered in tools and blueprints spread out on tables. It is not a clean, white-collar environment. There is dust and the smell of grease everywhere. That is just how a machine shop is. We have a group of workers who really know their way around the equipment. Some of them have been here since they were young. We do not really bother with marketing or trying to look polished. We just put the machines together and make sure they work. The office is just a small corner of the building where we keep the accounts. Sometimes customers come by to see how their machines are coming along. We just walk them through the shop floor. It is a very straightforward way of doing things. Mettupalayam Road keeps us connected to the rest of the city, which is handy for shipping things out. We just keep our heads down and work. There are no fancy mission statements here.