Balaji Bags

You can find our spot at H. No 60 on Gali No 1 in Sherpur village. We are right near the Panchayat Ghar, which is the main landmark everyone uses to find us. Being in Sherpur, things are a bit slower and more relaxed than in the big city. Our shop is part of the house, really. We have bags stacked up everywhere—on the floor, on old wooden benches, and hanging from the rafters. Most of what we do involves looking at the seams and making sure the handles are strong enough for heavy loads. Gali No 1 is a narrow lane, so you hear everything that goes on outside, from the goats to the tractors passing by. We started this because there was a need for good, sturdy bags in the village. It’s not a high-end boutique. The walls are just painted a simple white, and we have a single bulb that we turn on when it gets dark. We spend our afternoons sitting near the doorway where there is a bit of a breeze. People from near the Panchayat Ghar often drop in to see what new styles we have or just to say hello. It’s a quiet life, mostly focused on the work at hand. We don’t have a website or anything like that; we just stay here at house number sixty and do our thing. Each bag gets a bit of our time before it goes out.