Akbar International

Our shop, Akbar International, is at 289 Fatehabad Road. It’s a busy street, especially with all the people coming to see the sights nearby. We’ve been here for a long time, watching the cars and buses go by. Most days we are just busy with the stone inlay work. It’s very detailed stuff. You have to have good eyes for it, which gets harder as you get older. We spend a lot of time hunched over small pieces of marble, fitting little stones into them. It’s a tradition in this area and we are just another part of it. The shop isn't anything special to look at from the outside, but we have a lot of finished pieces inside. We don’t do much talking; we let the work speak for itself. Sometimes tourists come in and ask a lot of questions. We try to answer them even if our English isn't the best. It’s a family business, like many on this road. We’ve seen the area change a lot over the years, with new hotels and shops popping up everywhere. But inside our four walls, things stay pretty much the same. We have our tea, we do our carving, and we go home. It’s a rhythmic kind of life. We are just glad to be able to keep doing what our grandfathers did. The dust gets everywhere, but that is just part of the craft.