Ramkrishna Forgings Ltd

Dacres Lane is a busy spot. Our flat, number 17, isn't much to look at. We do metal work here. Kolkata is humid and the shop floor gets really hot in the afternoons. You can hear the city noise all day while we work. We have big machines that make a lot of racket. Sometimes the electricity goes out and we just sit and wait. Ramkrishna Forgings has been in this part of town for a while. We aren't doing anything fancy. It's mostly just hitting metal into shape and making sure the orders are ready for the trucks. The stairs up to the flat are narrow, so we have to be careful moving things. We spend a lot of time checking the weights and the sizes of the parts. It’s a bit messy with oil and dust everywhere. We have a small table where we keep the ledger. Most of us have been here for years. We know the neighbors. We usually get tea from the stall downstairs around eleven. It’s just a normal workplace. Nothing like those big glass buildings you see elsewhere. We keep our tools clean, or at least we try to. The work is hard on the hands. That’s just how it goes here in Kolkata. We show up, do the forging, and go home when the sun goes down.