The man was operating a foot-pedal sewing machine at a storefront in a shopping street

Among the many shops lining the marketplace, I came across a tailor at work. Sitting at a table he had set up outside his shop, he guided a well-worn sewing machine with rhythmic precision—clack, clack, clack—as he stitched fabric together.

In Japan, there are also shops that offer clothing repairs, so it’s not surprising that similar services exist in Mumbai. But the sight of a sewing machine operating right on the street is something rarely seen in Japan. Here, however, it seemed completely ordinary, blending seamlessly into the urban landscape.

Textiles and tailoring have deep roots in India. Cotton cultivation and weaving techniques date back to the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the world’s earliest societies. When the Portuguese arrived in India in the 16th century, they introduced Indian cotton fabrics to Europe, and later, the British East India Company exported them in massive quantities. These fine cotton fabrics became so widely traded that they took on a new name—calico, derived from the port city of Calicut where they were first shipped.

As I watched the tailor at work, it struck me that he, too, was part of this long lineage. Sitting at his sewing machine in the midst of a bustling Mumbai street, his hands carried on a tradition that stretched back thousands of years.

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