Samudra Paper Dona Plates

Samudra Paper Dona Plates is a small operation located on Nethaji Nagar Second Street. We spend our days making paper plates and those small bowls people call donas. Our workshop at No. 5/653 is filled with stacks of paper and the smell of the machines heating up. It gets pretty loud once we start the production run, so we have to shout sometimes to hear each other. We make these for local vendors, small snack shops, and people having family functions nearby. It’s not a big corporate setup; it’s just a practical business making things people use once and throw away. We have to keep an eye on the raw materials because if the paper quality isn't right, the machines jam up. My cousins and I handle most of the work ourselves. We load the finished stacks into bags and get them ready for pickup. The floor is usually covered in little circles of paper left over from the punching process. We sweep up every evening, but by the next morning, it’s messy again. We don't have a website or a fancy logo. People just know we are here on the second street if they need a batch of plates for a wedding or a temple festival. It’s repetitive work, but there is a certain rhythm to it that we’ve grown used to over the years. We just keep the machines running and try to stay ahead of the orders coming in from the neighborhood.