Mahadev Agarbatti

Our shop, Mahadev Agarbatti, is tucked away in Om Estate. If you know where Khokhdal Nadi is, we are right near there in Udyog Nagar 1. The smell is the first thing you notice when you walk in, which makes sense since we work with incense sticks all day. It’s a small space, and sometimes the dust from the sticks gets everywhere, but that’s just how it is. We spend a lot of time packing things into boxes and making sure the counts are right. My family started this because we needed something steady to do, and it just grew from there. It’s not a high-tech operation. We have a few machines and some tables where we sit and work. On hot days, it gets a bit stuffy inside, so we keep the doors open to get a breeze from the river area. Neighbors stop by sometimes just to say hello or ask for a specific scent. We don't really do much advertising. People mostly hear about us from their cousins or friends who live nearby. It’s a lot of manual work, and our hands are usually a bit black from the charcoal powder by the end of the day, but we don't mind it. We just keep making the batches and sending them out to the local markets around the area until the sun goes down and it's time to head home.