Sutaria Bandhej

If you ever find yourself at the New Super Market, we’re at B-12. It’s a small spot, but we’ve been here for a long time. Sutaria Bandhej is mostly about the old way of doing things, you know, the tying and the dyeing that takes so much patience. The shop usually smells a bit like vinegar and dyes because we’re always opening new stock. My hands are almost always stained with some shade of red or yellow, which makes it hard to keep my own clothes clean. We have these big wooden shelves that go all the way to the ceiling, packed with bundles of cloth. It’s a bit of a squeeze when more than three customers come in at once, but people don’t seem to mind the huddle. We talk to everyone who walks in, mostly about what colors are in season or how the weather is affecting the drying process. In the monsoon, things get really slow because the fabric just won’t dry right. We sit on these old stools and drink chai while we wait for the afternoon rush. It isn’t a fancy air-conditioned place with bright lights. It’s just a market shop where we know the neighbors and the security guards. We’ve seen kids grow up and start coming here with their own families. It’s just a simple life of dealing with threads and knots every single day while we watch the world go by.