Nitin Chawan

I am Nitin Chawan and my place is 6 Shivalay Sadan, located on Aanadwadi Road in Shivaji Nagar. It’s right near the Jijamata Vidya Mandir school in Kurar Village, Malad East. This part of Mumbai is always humming with activity. You can hear the kids at the school and the traffic on the main road from my window. I’ve been working from this spot for quite some time now. It’s a small, honest business that I run with a couple of guys who help out. We don’t have a big sign or any fancy lights outside. Most people just know us because we’ve been in the neighborhood forever. The room is filled with stuff we need for our daily work, and it’s not always the neatest place, but it’s where we get things done. I like being in Kurar Village because it feels like a real community. We know our neighbors and they know us. I didn't go to some big business school to learn how to do this; I just started working and learned as I went along. It’s a bit of a struggle sometimes with the Mumbai rains and the narrow roads, but we make it work. I don't have a mission statement or anything like that. I just show up, do the work people ask for, and go home to my family. That’s just the way it goes here, doing things the old-fashioned way.