Just Bags International

Our place is in the Ram Devi Hanman Singh Chawl in Dharavi. It is a bit of a maze to find us if you are not from around here. Just Bags International might sound like a big name, but we are just a small group of people working in a compact space. The chawl is always full of life, with kids playing and neighbors cooking. Inside our unit, it is mostly about the work. We have piles of nylon and canvas sitting in the corners waiting to be turned into something useful. We don't have air conditioning, just a couple of wall fans that move the air around. The lighting is not the best, so we often work near the doorway where the natural light comes in. We spend our days measuring, cutting, and stitching. Sometimes we make mistakes and have to rip the seams out and start over. That is just part of the process. We don't have a showroom with fancy displays. Most of our bags are packed into big sacks as soon as they are finished. We have been in this spot for a long time and the walls could probably tell a lot of stories. It is a busy life, and we are usually tired by the end of the day. But we wake up and do it again because this is what we know how to do. It is just a normal Dharavi workshop.