Jagdish Chikan

You can find us on the ground floor of the Sita Mahal Building. It is right near the Raheja Construction House on Linking Road in Khar. Being on the ground floor means we see everyone walking past on the sidewalk. Jagdish Chikan is mostly about the embroidery work. We have people who sit for hours doing the fine stitching that makes Chikan work look the way it does. Linking Road is always full of shoppers and traffic, so there is never a quiet moment outside. Inside, it smells a bit like old fabric and the tea we make in the corner. We have big lights over the work area because you need to see the tiny stitches clearly. It is a lot of manual labor. Sometimes our backs hurt from sitting too long, so we take turns walking around the block. We have a lot of finished pieces stored in plastic bags to keep the white fabric from getting dirty in the Mumbai air. It’s a bit of a squeeze when new stock arrives because the room isn't that big. We don’t use any fancy computers to track things; it’s mostly just notebooks and pens. The building itself is old, but it stays cool enough in the summer. We just keep our heads down and focus on the needles and thread until the sun goes down and the streetlights come on.