Karavali Industries

Karavali Industries is tucked away in the village of Badaga Yekkar, out in the Mangalore taluka. We are pretty close to the Kati Durga Temple, so we can usually hear the bells and the music when there’s a festival going on. The surroundings are quite green compared to the city, but inside the workshop, it’s all metal and grease. We make various industrial parts and small components that other businesses need. It’s a noisy place once we get the lathes and the drills going in the morning. The humidity in this part of the country is no joke, so we all end up pretty soaked by the time lunch rolls around. We don't have a big corporate team or anyone in suits. It’s just a handful of us who know how to handle the machines. The floor is always a bit oily, and there are metal shavings everywhere that we have to sweep up constantly. We get our orders and we just work through them one by one. There’s no rush to be the biggest company around; we just want to get the pieces made right so they actually fit when they get delivered. Sometimes the monsoon rain is so loud on the tin roof that we can’t even hear ourselves talk, so we just point and nod. It’s a decent way to earn a living, away from the main city's noise, even if the work itself is loud.