For Sihor, casting brass in family foundries in a town that once ruled the region and no longer does.
Foundries in a former capital
Sihor was the seat of the Bhavnagar rulers before the capital moved to the coast, and the town has cast brass in small family foundries for generations. Both facts sit slightly awkwardly with the present.
Heat, skill, and diminishing return
Brass casting is physically punishing work - furnaces, molten metal, long hours in high heat - requiring skill that takes years and pays less each decade in real terms as substitutes take the market.
The people doing it are frequently the third or fourth generation. They are good at it. They also cannot say with confidence that it was worth learning, and that is a hard sentence to sit with when it is your entire working identity.
What the work addresses
Whether continuing is a choice or an inability to stop. Both look identical from outside and feel completely different to live. Some families here should modernise into decorative or architectural work where handwork commands a premium; some should stop; some should continue deliberately, on clear terms.
The unexamined middle is where the damage accumulates.
Sessions
Online, in Gujarati, generally in the evening after the furnaces are down.
Frequently asked questions
- Can coaching help the workshop survive?
- It helps you decide what you are trying to do with it. Market and product strategy is a different discipline.
- Do you work with manual trades?
- Yes, and the physical toll of the work is part of the picture rather than beside it.
