Taj Building Materials

We are right in the thick of it at Juna Bazar in Himatnagar. Being across from the G.E.B. office means there’s always people coming and going. Moti Gahorvad Naka is a busy intersection, so there’s a lot of honking and traffic right outside our door all through the afternoon. We sell all kinds of building materials, so the shop is usually overflowing with bags of cement and stacks of pipes. It’s a bit of a maze to get through the aisles sometimes. We don’t have a fancy layout or anything; we just put things where they fit on the shelves. My father started this business, and I’ve been working here since I was just a kid. The shelves are made of old wood, and the floor is concrete that’s been patched up more than a few times. We spend our day talking to contractors and locals who are fixing up their own houses. It’s a lot of advice-giving and haggling over the prices. We don't have a uniform, just our regular clothes that usually end up with some cement dust on them. When the power goes out, which happens around here, we just sit out on the steps and wait for it to come back. It’s a simple way of doing business for us. We know most of our customers by name, and we know what they need before they even ask for it.