The row of leather goods shops along the snaking 90-Feet Road in Dharavi in central Mumbai has been shut for more than a month now.
Behind the road and perpendicular to it lies an unfathomable maze of alleys and passageways wide enough for only two adults to walk by, hosting a jigsaw of semi-permanent ground-plus-one structures that are workshops of leather goods and double up as homes of workers.
In the innards of one dimly-lit such workshop, two young men idle away, sharing a phone to take in a TikTok video, barely managing to smile.
Two other men sleep within centimetres of each other in the mezzanine loft amid an array of differently-sized colourful leather pieces. “These are four of the five men who work for me but are bloody wasting