Grace Boutique.

If you know Aminabad, you know how crowded Sriram Road gets, especially during the festival months or on weekends. That is where we are, right in the thick of all that noise and energy. Grace Boutique has been our little spot for a while now. The shop is usually full of half-finished suits and rolls of lace that we haven't found a place for yet. It gets a bit chaotic when three customers come in at once for their fittings and the power goes out, which happens more than we’d like. We use the old manual machines for some things and the electric ones when we have a lot to get through. My hands are usually stained with chalk or a bit sore from the scissors by the time we close up. Aminabad is a tough place to work because of the traffic, but there is always something happening outside the door. We don't have a big staff, just a couple of us who know how to handle a needle without poking ourselves too often. Sometimes the measurements don't go exactly right the first time and we have to fix things, but that is just part of tailoring. People come in with pictures of dresses they saw online, and we do our best to make something similar with whatever fabric they brought. It’s a busy life on Sriram Road, but we wouldn’t really know what to do with ourselves if things were quiet. We just keep sewing.