Kotecha & Co.

Working out of A-80 in the Hapa Marketing Yard means our day starts much earlier than most. The yard is a big, open place in Jamnagar where there’s always dust in the air and the sound of heavy engines. By six in the morning, the trucks are already lining up, and there’s a lot of shouting back and forth between the drivers and the workers. Our office is a simple room right in the thick of it. It’s got a concrete floor that’s easy to sweep because people are always tracking in dirt from the yard. We have a few wooden benches for people to sit on while they wait for their paperwork to be finished. The walls have some stains from old rain leaks, but we don’t mind much. Most of the time, we’re out on the floor checking the quality of the goods or talking to the farmers. It’s a loud, busy place and you have to speak up if you want to be heard. We keep a big water pot in the corner because it gets incredibly dry and hot under the tin roofs. There’s no air conditioning, just a couple of heavy-duty ceiling fans that hum all day. It’s a rough and ready kind of life here at Hapa, but it’s what we know. We just focus on the scales and the ledgers and getting the trucks moved out on time.