Lady Bird

If you walk toward No. 72 Taramoni Ghat Road, you’ll find Lady Bird near the Jagrani Sanskritik Sanstha Club and the Netaji Metro station. Being so close to the metro means you can hear the rumble of the trains every few minutes, which becomes like background music after a while. The shop is in a spot where a lot of people walk past on their way to work. We spend the morning sweeping the front and getting things ready for whoever might drop in. The space is a bit cramped because we try to fit a lot in, but it’s cozy enough. There’s a small desk where we keep the ledger and a few pens that always seem to go missing. We have a couple of mirrors on the walls that make the place look a bit bigger than it actually is. The afternoon sun hits the front window pretty hard, so it gets a bit warm inside until the sun goes down. Most of our day is just spent tidying up the displays and chatting with the ladies who live in the neighborhood. We don't use any fancy systems, just a basic way of keeping track of what goes out. It’s a simple shop with a steady flow of people, and we like the rhythm of it. It feels like a part of the local community here on Taramoni Ghat Road. We usually lock up once the evening rush from the metro dies down.