Pritam Bastra Bitan

Pritam Bastra Bitan is tucked inside Rabindra Market on Garia Station Road, right near Choto Battala. If you know the area, you know how crowded it gets around here, especially in the evenings when everyone is coming home from the train station. The shop is full of all kinds of fabrics and ready-made stuff piled up high. I’ve been working in this market for years, and it hasn't changed much except for the names of the shops around us. We have a lot of regular customers who come to us for their family’s clothes because they know we’ve been here a long time. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze inside when there are more than three people, but we make it work somehow. The wooden counters are old and have plenty of scratches from years of measuring out cloth for people. We don't have a fancy computer system; we still write almost everything down in the big ledger books. Sometimes the power goes out and we have to use the emergency lights, but the customers don't seem to mind much. We just talk and wait for the lights to come back on. It’s a simple way of living. We aren't looking to become a giant chain or anything like that. As long as we can keep the shop running and help the local people find what they need, we are satisfied. It’s just daily life for us here.