J Garage

J Garage is located in Kudavechoor, which is a quiet part of Vaikom. It’s basically just a workspace where we get our hands dirty every single day. We don’t have a shiny showroom or a waiting lounge with coffee machines. It’s a garage in the truest sense—filled with tools, old spare parts, and the smell of engine oil. We spend our time bent over engines or crawled under chassis. It’s heavy work, and our clothes are always stained with grease, but that’s just the job. People around Vaikom bring their vehicles to us because they know we’ve been here for a while. We don't use a lot of technical jargon. If something is broken, we tell you it's broken and try to fix it. Sometimes it takes longer than expected because a part is hard to find or the rust is worse than it looked. We don't have a big team, just a few of us who know our way around a wrench. The rain can be a bit of a problem here in Kudavechoor, making the floor slippery, so we have to be careful. We just want to keep things running for the local folks. It’s not a glamorous life, but there’s a certain satisfaction when an engine finally starts up again. We’re just regular mechanics doing what we know how to do. There are always greasy rags lying around, and the phone rings more than we can answer.