Fareda Steel

Fareda Steel is located at 3, Ethiraj Samy Street in Kodungaiyur. It’s a bit of a tight street, so getting the big trucks in and out can be a real challenge sometimes. We’ve had a few close calls with the side mirrors, but we manage. The shop itself is a basic setup. We have different sections for the various types of steel we carry. It’s usually just me and two other workers here during the day. We spend a lot of time sorting through the stock and making sure everything is labeled properly, though the labels tend to fall off in the humidity. Kodungaiyur is a busy neighborhood, and we’ve gotten to know the other shop owners pretty well. We often share a meal or a coffee during the slow hours in the afternoon. We don’t use any polished language or have a big corporate office. Our office is just a corner of the warehouse with a desk and a few filing cabinets. Sometimes the phone rings off the hook, and other times it’s dead quiet for hours. We take it as it comes. The floor is concrete and stays relatively cool, which is a blessing in the Chennai heat. We just try to do our work and get through the list of tasks for the day. It’s a local operation, and we like the independence of running our own small business on Ethiraj Samy Street.