Gangapadma International

Our spot is Shop No. 1 in Peerless Nagar, Sodepur. It’s a small place, really, but it keeps us busy from morning until late evening. Sodepur has changed a lot over the years, more traffic and more shops popping up everywhere, but we’ve stayed right here. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze inside with all the files and the samples we keep on the shelves. Most of the day is just answering calls and writing down orders in the big ledger books we still use. We like the physical books better than just doing everything on a computer screen. The neighbors are mostly other shopkeepers, so we talk about the weather or the price of tea while we stand outside on the pavement. Being at Shop No. 1 means we see everyone who walks into the complex. It gets a bit damp during the monsoon, and we have to be careful with the stock, but that’s just part of being in this part of West Bengal. We don’t really do fancy meetings or presentations here. Usually, it’s just sitting around a wooden table and figuring out the logistics for the next week. Sometimes the power goes out, and we just light a few candles and keep talking. It’s a simple setup, nothing like the big offices in the city center, but it works for what we do. We’ve been here long enough that people know us by name. It’s a busy little corner of Sodepur, and even when it’s loud outside, we just keep our heads down and get through the paperwork one page at a time.