Rajkot Footware Merchant Association

The association operates out of C/o Usha Agencies, which you can find right in the middle of Mochi Bazar in Rajkot. Being in Mochi Bazar makes a lot of sense because this is where the footwear trade has been centered for as long as anyone can remember. The street is narrow and always smells a bit like leather and rubber glue. Our office is a simple room where the local merchants come to sit and talk about how business is going. It’s not a big corporate headquarters or anything like that. We have some old wooden chairs and a table that has seen better days. Usually, there’s a newspaper spread out and a few glasses of water for visitors. We spend a lot of time discussing the market prices and the problems with the supply chain. Everyone knows everyone else in this bazar, so it’s more like a community than a formal organization. Sometimes the discussions get a bit loud, but that’s just how things are here. We keep the records in some big ledgers and a few dusty files. It’s a quiet place most of the afternoon when the shopkeepers are busy with their own customers, but it picks up in the evening. We have been part of this bazar's history for a long time and we just continue doing things the way they’ve always been done. There is a sense of pride in keeping the old ways going despite everything.