Dhoop Chaon & Co.

We are based at 1st Hasnabad Lane in Santacruz West. If you’ve ever been to this part of Mumbai, you know how packed the streets can get. Our office, Dhoop Chaon & Co., is right in the middle of all that. It’s an old building, and we’ve been here for a long time, so we know all the other shopkeepers on the lane. The office is pretty simple. We have some old ceiling fans that wobble a bit and a lot of green filing cabinets that have been there since before I started. It gets quite humid in the monsoon, and the walls get that damp smell, but we are used to it. We spend our days handling the accounts and talking to the people we do business with. There is always a lot of activity outside the window, with people selling things and rickshaws trying to squeeze through the narrow lane. We don't have a big staff, just a few of us who have known each other for years. We usually bring our own tiffins for lunch and eat at our desks. It’s a very straightforward way of working. No one wears a suit here, we just wear what is comfortable for the weather. Sometimes the power goes out for an hour, and we just sit and talk until it comes back on. It’s a slow and steady kind of life here.