Manish Paint & Hardware

The shop is right on Magadi Main Road in Agrahara Dasarahalli. It's a small space, so we have stuff stacked all the way to the ceiling. You can smell the paint as soon as you walk in. Most days are spent mixing colors for people who are repainting their houses. We get a lot of locals coming in for a single box of nails or a specific type of wrench. Sometimes it takes us a few minutes to find what they need because the shelves are so crowded. We have brushes, rollers, and different kinds of hinges scattered about. It is a bit messy, but we know where everything is. My hands usually have a bit of paint on them by lunchtime. It is a busy road, so there is always noise from the traffic outside. People stop their bikes right in front to grab something quickly. We talk to a lot of painters and plumbers who are working on jobs nearby. They usually have a list written on a scrap of paper. We just pull the items one by one. If we don't have something, we tell them where else to look. We don't try to sell them stuff they don't need. It is just a regular hardware store. Some days the computer for the billing acts up, so we write things down by hand. It keeps us on our toes. The afternoon sun hits the front of the shop pretty hard, so we pull the awning down.