New Bombey Tent House

Our shop, New Bombey Tent House, is located over in Shastri Nagar in the Shiv Shakti Colony. It’s a place where we keep all the stuff needed for big gatherings and local festivals. We have a lot of different things, like stage platforms and rows of plastic chairs. The yard can get a bit messy when we are in the middle of a big job. We have to organize the poles by their size so we can find them quickly without wasting time. My cousin and I do most of the heavy lifting ourselves. It’s a lot of physical work, especially when the sun is beating down on us in the middle of the afternoon. We don't really use any modern machines, just our hands and some ropes to tie everything down. The name "New Bombey" has been on the front for a long time, even if the paint is starting to peel a bit now. We like the neighborhood here in Shastri Nagar because it is mostly families and they always come to us for their functions. Sometimes we have to go quite far to set things up, but we always come back here to unload everything at the end of the day. We have a small radio that we keep on most of the day for some background music while we work. It’s just a normal way to earn a living, and we’ve been doing it this way for as long as I can remember.