Faridi Chikan Art

Down in Batla House at Jamia Nagar, you can find us at M-84/1. It is a lively neighborhood with a lot of history and people always on the move. Our workshop is where we handle all the Chikan art work. It is a tradition for us, something we have been around since we were younger. The space isn’t very big, so we have to be careful about how we stack the materials. Every day is pretty much the same: we open up, check the orders, and start on the embroidery. It is slow work, and your eyes can get tired after a few hours, so we take breaks for tea and a bit of talk. The street outside is usually crowded with rickshaws and vendors, which is quite different from the quiet atmosphere we try to keep inside. We don't have a big marketing team or anything like that. People know us because they have seen our work or someone told them where we are. We just try to do a decent job on every piece of cloth that comes through. Sometimes the power goes out and we have to wait a bit, but that is just life in this part of town. We keep our tools sharp and our hands busy. It is a simple business, really. We just make the clothes and hope people find them useful for their daily lives. Most of our work is done by hand, sitting on the floor.