Ola Masala

Our shop is number two in Sahakar Colony, right there in Kalewadi. We’re pretty close to Jyotiba Nagar, so it’s a familiar area for most people around here. If you walk by, you can usually smell the spices before you see the sign. We spend a lot of time grinding and mixing, so there’s always a bit of dust in the air. It’s a small shop, but it serves the purpose. We started out just doing a few basic blends and it grew from there. Now we have bags of different peppers and seeds stacked against the walls. It’s a family-run kind of feel, even if we aren't all related. We know the neighbors and they know us. Sometimes someone will stop in just to chat for a minute while we’re working. The machines can be loud, so we have to shout over them sometimes. It’s not a quiet job, that’s for sure. We don’t have a big marketing plan or anything. We just make the masala, package it up, and sell it to whoever comes by or the local stores. Sometimes the electricity goes out and we have to wait around, but that’s just how things go. We keep the shop open late most days because that’s when people are coming home from work and realize they need something for dinner. It's just us at Ola Masala, keeping things moving every single day without any fuss.