Ali Block Print

My name is Ali and we run Ali Block Print on Street Number 39 in Zakir Nagar. It’s at house number 43. This isn't a factory or a big business. It’s just where we do our printing work every day. The street is pretty narrow, so it’s hard to park a car anywhere near, but people manage to find us. We have these big wooden tables where the fabric goes. My father taught me how to do this when I was just a kid, and I’ve been doing it ever since. The air usually smells a bit like dye and damp cloth, which I don't even notice anymore. We don't have a receptionist or a fancy waiting area. If you come by, you’ll probably see us with ink on our hands. Zakir Nagar is a busy place with a lot of noise, but inside the shop, we just focus on the patterns. Sometimes a block breaks and we have to fix it or get a new one carved by the old man down the road. It’s slow work. You can’t rush it or it looks wrong. We get orders from people nearby and sometimes from further away in Delhi. We don't use computers much for the business side of things. We have a big ledger where we write everything down by hand. It works for us. It’s an old-fashioned way of living, I suppose, but it’s what we know. The neighborhood has its own rhythm.