Om Auto Spares

Om Auto Spares is right there in Karol Bagh, specifically at 1130/10 on Hari Singh Nalwa Street. If you know the area, you know how it is. Every morning we roll up the heavy iron shutters and start wiping the dust off the spare parts boxes. Karol Bagh is famous for this stuff, so the competition is everywhere, but we just focus on our own corner. The street is so narrow that sometimes two bikes can barely pass each other, let alone a car. Our shelves are packed with everything from tiny nuts and bolts to larger engine components that have been sitting there for months. The air always smells like engine oil and rubber. I usually have grease under my fingernails by ten in the morning because customers want to hold the parts and check the weight or the threading. We don't have a computer system to track everything; we just know where things are by memory. When someone asks for a specific part for an old model, I usually have to climb a rickety ladder to the top shelf. It’s a lot of standing around and talking to mechanics who come in looking for a bargain. In the afternoons, the sun hits the front of the shop directly, making it quite hot, so we usually drink a lot of tea from the stall next door to keep going until we close up at night. It’s just how things go here in the market.