Indian Cork Industries

Being in Safdarjung Enclave is a bit different from the usual industrial zones you find in the city. Our office for Indian Cork Industries is at B-2/103, and it’s a place where we spend most of our daylight hours. It’s a bit quieter here than the main roads, which helps when we need to focus on the inventory lists for all the cork sheets and bottle stoppers we handle. The space isn’t huge, but we’ve made it work over the years. We have some samples of natural cork sitting on the shelves, and the smell of the material is something you just get used to after a while. Most of us here started out not knowing much about how cork is actually processed, but now we can tell the difference in grades just by looking at the grain. It’s practical work. We spend a lot of time on the phone talking to vendors and checking on the logistics of getting things from one point to another. The fan in the corner makes a bit of a clicking sound, but nobody bothers to fix it because it’s been that way forever. Sometimes we sit out on the small balcony during lunch just to get some air. It’s just a group of regular people trying to do an honest job without any of the big corporate talk. We keep things simple and stay busy with the daily grind of the cork trade.