Sethi Balti Trunk House

If you go down to Guru Bazar, you’ll find Sethi Balti Trunk House right there in the middle of all the noise in Chowkchandsudan. It is a loud place, honestly, with the sound of metal hitting metal and people haggling over prices all day long. We have been sitting here for years, surrounded by those big metal trunks and buckets that everyone used to use for everything. Nowadays, people use plastic, but there is still a crowd that wants a solid trunk for a wedding or for keeping their winter clothes safe from the rats. The shop isn’t very big, so we end up stacking the buckets outside on the pavement. Sometimes the rain catches us off guard and we have to scramble to get everything back under the roof before the rust starts to show. It is hard work, moving those heavy things around, and our hands are usually covered in some kind of metal dust by the time the sun goes down. We don't have fancy lights or a computer to track everything; we just remember where we put things. Usually, a cup of tea from the stall next door is what keeps us going through the afternoon slump. Most people find us because their fathers or grandfathers bought their first trunk here. It’s just an old-fashioned way of doing things, and we aren't planning to change much of it. The floor is concrete and a bit cracked, but it holds up just fine for what we need to do.