Union Press

You can find us in the Fort area, right inside the Zoroastrian Association Building on Homji Street. Being near Horniman Circle means we’re surrounded by all that old architecture and history. Our press is at number 13, and it’s a place that smells like ink and old paper the moment you walk in. We’ve been running these machines for a long time, and they make a rhythmic thumping sound that you get used to after a while. It’s not a modern digital print shop with clean white counters. We have grease on our rags and ink under our fingernails. The building itself has these high ceilings and big windows, which is nice, but it gets quite warm in the summer. We spend our days setting up plates and checking the alignment on the runs. Sometimes the paper jams and we have to spend an hour fixing it, which is frustrating but part of the job. We keep our records in big physical books rather than on a computer, mostly because it’s what we know. There’s a sense of permanence here that you don’t find in newer parts of Mumbai. We don't have a website or a sales department. People just know where we are and bring their work to us. We do the job, wrap it in brown paper, and wait for them to pick it up. It is a simple routine.