Colours Masala Industry

Our workshop is located at 4-15-73 in the Sriram Nagar Colony. This is in the Gangaram area of Chanda Nagar. It’s a residential neighborhood mostly, so we try not to make too much noise, but the masala grinders do make a bit of a racket. We’ve been running Colours Masala Industry from this spot for a while. The kitchen where we process the spices is always stained with different colors from the chilies and turmeric. It’s a small operation. We have a few local women who come in to help with the cleaning and sorting of the whole spices. We spend a lot of time sitting on the floor, picking out stones and stems before anything goes into the mill. Chanda Nagar has grown a lot lately, but our corner of Sriram Nagar still feels like a small village. We don’t have a fancy storefront; most of our work is done in the back. My hands always smell like cardamom or cloves even after I wash them several times. We don't have a big mission statement or anything like that. We just come in, do the work, and hope people like what we make. It’s a lot of dusty work, and the air can get quite spicy, but we enjoy being part of the colony. It’s a simple life, and we are happy just being a local industry. We take breaks together and talk about what’s going on in the neighborhood while we drink our afternoon tea.