Rajendra Hardwares

You can find us on Rasappa Chetty Street in Park Town. This is an old part of the city, and our building has two numbers because of the way things changed over the years—Old No 112 and New No 27. The street is very narrow and always packed with people and carts moving goods. We sell all kinds of hardware, from tiny screws to heavy chains. Everything is kept in wooden drawers or stacked in boxes that have been here for decades. It smells like metal and old paper in here. I took over from my uncle, and not much has changed since then. We don't have a computer to track what we have; we just know by looking at the shelves. Sometimes it takes a minute to find a specific size of bolt, but we always have it somewhere. The customers are mostly builders or people fixing up their old houses in the neighborhood. It’s a lot of talking and measuring things out. The ceiling is high but the shop feels small because of all the stock. When the monsoon hits, the street gets a bit messy, but we stay open regardless. It’s a traditional way of doing business, face to face, and we like it that way. We’ve been part of this street for so long that we know everyone who passes by.