Leather Valley

Our shop is right across from the Ashok Silk Mill Compound in Kala Killa. Being in Dharavi, things are always moving pretty fast outside our door. We’ve got piles of leather sitting around most of the time. It smells like it too, that strong hide scent that stays on your clothes long after you leave the shop. The space isn't huge, but we make it work with what we have. Most days, we are just cutting or sorting through different batches that come in. The street outside can get really loud with all the traffic and people walking by to the mill. We don’t have a fancy showroom or anything like that. It’s just a practical workspace where the floor is usually covered in small scraps and offcuts. We’ve been at this address for a good bit now, so we know most of the neighbors. Sometimes the power goes out for a bit, but we just wait it out and talk for a while. It’s a hands-on kind of job. We get a lot of dust from the road coming in, so we spend time wiping down the benches every morning. People drop by asking for things, and we just show them what’s on the shelves. It’s a basic operation. We don’t put on airs. You walk in, see the work being done, and that’s it. Just a regular day for us here in the middle of everything.