Ankur Footwears (P) Ltd.

Our workshop is at 52/1 Gopal Banerjee Lane. It is one of those narrow lanes where you have to be careful when two people are walking past each other. We have been making and selling footwear from this same spot for a long time. The building is old, and you can smell the rubber and the glue as soon as you turn the corner into the lane. We have boxes of shoes stacked everywhere, sometimes even blocking the path to the back where the workers sit. It is a busy place, especially in the mornings when we are loading up the stock to go out. We don’t have a big showroom with mirrors and lights; it’s more of a practical space where we get the work done. The floor is concrete and usually has some scuff marks from all the crates being dragged around. Most of the people who work here have been with us for years, so we all know the routine pretty well. We have a small desk near the entrance where we keep the ledger and take the orders. It’s not a glamorous job, and the lane can get quite muddy when it rains, but we keep the production going regardless of the weather. We focus on making shoes that people can actually wear every day without them falling apart. That’s just how we’ve always done things here on Gopal Banerjee Lane.