Santhosh Garments Store

Santhosh Garments Store is located at No. 9 Govendan Road. We are in the Sky Cell Tower Building, which is a big landmark in West Mambalam. Everyone knows the tower, so it’s easy to tell people where we are. The shop is on the ground level and it’s quite packed with shirts, pants, and all sorts of clothes. We don’t have much room to move around when there are more than four people inside. West Mambalam is a very busy residential area, so we get a lot of people walking by on their way to the station. We open up the shutters around nine in the morning and start dusting the shelves. The dust comes in from the road constantly. We have a small stool behind the counter where I sit when there are no customers. The ceiling fan is quite fast and it keeps the place cool enough. We have a mirror on the back wall that makes the store look a bit bigger than it actually is. Sometimes the regulars stop by just to chat for a few minutes about the weather or the local news. We don't do any big advertising; people just see the sign when they walk past Govendan Road. It’s a simple life running the store. We keep track of the sales in a big ledger book by hand. It feels more real that way. We stay open until late evening when the street lights finally come on. It is what we do every day.