Arobinda Keshosree Niketan

Arobinda Keshosree Niketan has been on Chittaranjan Avenue for a long time. It is a busy street with all the yellow taxis and buses always honking outside. Our shop at 322/C is easy to find if you are walking down C.R. Avenue. The walls are a bit faded, and the ceiling is high like many old buildings in North Kolkata. We have several big mirrors and old-style wooden cabinets where we keep the combs and scissors. It is a man’s place mostly. People stop in when they are heading home from the office or before a family gathering. We don’t do anything too modern or strange here. It is just regular hair cutting and shaving. The water can be a bit cold in winter, but nobody really complains. We have a couple of guys working here who have been at these chairs for years. They know most of the faces that walk through the door. Sometimes the newspaper is laying around on the bench and customers read it while they wait their turn. It is not a silent place; there is always someone talking about politics or local news. We don't have fancy air conditioning, just the big ceiling fans that keep the air moving. It gets dusty because of the main road, but we wipe things down when we can. It is a simple life here in 700006. We just keep our heads down and do the work.