Site 2
Mehrotra Perfumeries

​

Just as you walk inwards from the main street, one can see two perfumeries on either side of the street. One of them is owned by Mr. Raju Meherotra, who has been in this family business from the time of his great grandfather. He has farms in Odisha from where he gets the raw ingredients to prepare attar.

The perfumeries have a courtyards used for drying the raw ingredients with the degs at the end with large chimneys or sheds opening up to the sky for pushing the smoke outwards. The perfumeries have security guards and CCTV cameras, to protect from theft as the raw materials and even the attars are expensive
 

After lighting the bhatti in the morning by 10am, the workers have a lot of time in which they lay ingredients to dry out in the sun with some other activities that bring economy like packaging of vaseline that is made somewhere else and brought here for packaging when the workers have free time. The perfumeries have courtyards and skylights for ventilation and sunlight for drying materials. The perfumeries have a close association with Maharashtra, they create a specific attar made from dried sea shells mainly brought from Maharashtra.

​