Keshav Handloom

If you go down to Sondapur Chowk on Jattal Road, you will find Keshav Handloom. We have been here for a while, surrounded by the sights and smells of the local market. Our shop is full of fabrics and finished goods stacked from the floor to the ceiling. It’s a bit of a mess sometimes, especially when we get a new shipment in and haven't had time to sort it all out. Handloom work is something that takes patience. We spend our days showing customers different patterns and feeling the weight of the cloth. We don't have fancy lighting or air conditioning; it's just a regular shop with fans spinning overhead. People come in looking for something specific, and we usually have to dig through a few piles to find exactly what they want. It’s a slow kind of business compared to the big malls, but our customers seem to like it that way. We know the other shopkeepers around Sondapur Chowk and we often share a cup of tea in the afternoons. There’s no big corporate structure here. It’s just us, the fabric, and the people who walk through the door. We don't do much in the way of online sales; we prefer it when people can actually touch the material before they buy it. It’s how we’ve always done things on Jattal Road. We just keep our heads down and keep working.