Grasim, Aditya Birla Group

We are tucked away in the staff colony at Aditya Cement in Adityapuram. It is part of the Chittorgarh district in Rajasthan, which means it gets incredibly dry and sunny most of the year. The address is E-44/1. Living and working in a colony like this is different from being in the middle of a big city. Everyone knows everyone else here. You see the same faces at the small shop or when walking to the office area. It is a quiet place, mostly just the sound of the plant in the distance and the occasional bird. Our workspace is pretty basic. We have some wooden tables and a few metal cupboards for the files. We spend a lot of time on the phone or checking the schedules for the day. Because we are part of the larger Aditya Birla Group setup, there is always something moving or being planned, but our local office feels much smaller than that. It’s where the actual paperwork happens. Sometimes cows wander onto the road outside, and everything slows down for a minute. The walls are a pale color, and we have a few posters that have been there for years. We don't have air conditioning, so we rely on the desert coolers during the peak of summer. It’s a steady kind of life. We get the work done and then go home to our families in the same colony.