A Abdul Shukoor & Co

You can find us at New No 65, Old No 3, on Maddox Street in Choolai. Choolai has always been a place for trade, and we’ve been part of that for a long time. Our name is A Abdul Shukoor & Co. We mostly deal with raw materials and trading. The building itself is one of those old ones with narrow stairs and high ceilings. It’s always a bit dark inside until we get the lights on in the morning. We don’t have a showroom or anything to look at. It’s mostly desks, ledgers, and stacks of samples in small boxes. People come in to discuss prices or check the quality of a batch of goods. We’ve seen Maddox Street change over the years, but our little corner stays pretty much the same. We don’t use any high-tech systems. Most of our records are still kept in big books because that’s how we’ve always done it and it works for us. It’s a family business, so there’s usually a cousin or an uncle sitting around drinking tea and talking to customers about the local news. We don't try to rush things. If someone wants to talk for an hour before buying anything, that’s fine with us. We value the relationships we have with the people who come here. It’s a slow, steady way of doing things, but it’s kept us going all these years. We close the shutters when the sun goes down and start again the next day for whoever needs us.