Anil Bartan Bhandar

We are tucked away in the middle of Jhotwara, which is one of the most crowded market areas you can find. The sound of metal clinking is something you hear all day long in our shop. We have stacks of steel plates, brass pots, and aluminum pans piled up almost to the ceiling. It’s a bit of a maze inside, and only we really know where everything is kept. People come here when they are setting up a new kitchen or when their old pressure cooker finally stops working. We spend hours talking to customers about the weight of a pot or the shine on a thali. The street outside is narrow and full of bikes, so there’s always a bit of shouting and horn honking going on right at our doorstep. We’ve been here in Jhotwara for a long time, and the shop hasn't changed much since the beginning. The shelves are old wood and the floor is worn down from all the feet walking over it. We don't have any big corporate plans, we just want to sell utensils that don't break the first time you use them. It’s a dusty, noisy place, but it’s our place. Sometimes the heat makes the metal too hot to touch, but we just keep the fans going and keep serving whoever walks through the door. We are not big on fancy displays, we just show people what we have in the back.