Shivam Tailor

The shop is at No. 30 in Gayatrinagar, not too far from Lal Baugh. It’s a small place, mostly taken up by the big cutting table in the middle. We have shelves on the walls filled with different colors of thread and some fabric left behind by customers. You’ll usually see a few sewing machines humming away throughout the day. There’s a mirror in the corner for fittings, but it’s a bit old and has some spots on it. We’ve been stitching clothes for the local people here for quite a while. People bring in their own cloth, and we take their measurements with an old yellow tape. It’s a lot of repetitive work, but we like seeing how a piece of cloth turns into a shirt or a pair of trousers. The floor is usually covered in small scraps of fabric and bits of thread that we sweep up at the end of the day. It’s a noisy little spot because of the machines and the people stopping by to chat. We don’t have a big sign, just our name painted on the front. Sometimes we get behind on orders when there’s a wedding season, and the shop gets really cramped with all the bags of clothes everywhere. We just do our best to get the stitching right and keep the needles moving. It is a simple life here.