A-1 Pen & Plastic Industries

We've been tucked away in the Bombay Talkies Compound for quite some time now. If you know Malad West, you know it gets pretty crowded around here, especially near the Saibaba Temple. Our spot at 129-F isn't much to look at from the outside, but it’s where all the work happens. Most days, it’s just the sound of the machines molding plastic and the smell of raw materials. We started out small with just a few pen designs, and now there’s plastic bits and pieces everywhere you look. It’s a bit of a mess sometimes, honestly. People stop by asking for directions to the temple and we just point them around the corner while we’re loading boxes. The humidity in Mumbai doesn't help much when we’re trying to keep the machines cool, but we manage. My cousin usually handles the logistics while I stay on the floor making sure the molds are sitting right. We don’t have a fancy lobby or anything like that. Just a desk with a lot of papers and some samples of what we’ve been making lately. It gets dusty with all the traffic coming through the compound, but that’s just how it is in this part of town. We just keep our heads down and get the orders out. Sometimes the power goes out in the afternoons, so we sit outside and wait for it to come back. It's a simple living, but it keeps us busy.