J-Sil Trading Corporation

J-Sil Trading Corporation operates out of a space on the first floor at 21/29 Popatwadi, right off Kalbadevi Road. If you’ve ever walked down Kalbadevi, you know how packed and narrow the lanes can get. It’s a constant stream of handcarts, shoppers, and delivery bikes. Our building is one of those old Mumbai structures with a lot of character and very narrow corridors. Climbing up to the first floor is part of our daily exercise. Once you’re inside, it’s a bit quieter, but you can still hear the city shouting outside the window. We spend our time trading, which means a lot of talking on the phone and writing down numbers in ledgers. Our desks are usually covered in papers and catalogs. It’s a tight space, so we have to be organized, or we’d never find anything. We’ve been in this part of town for years, and we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves in a quiet suburban office. There’s a certain way things work here in Popatwadi, a kind of unwritten code among the traders. We just follow that and keep our business running. Sometimes the monsoon rain leaks a bit near the window, but we just put a bucket down and keep going. It’s not perfect, but it’s our spot and we make it work every day without any complaints.