J. S. Shawls

You can find us right opposite the Masjid Wali Gali in Mochpura Bazar. It’s one of those places where you really have to know where you’re going because the lanes are narrow and always crowded with people carrying bundles. We deal with shawls mostly. It’s a messy business sometimes with all the lint and wool flying around, especially when the season gets busy. My father started this work and now I’m the one looking after the daily stuff. We spend a lot of time checking the threads and making sure the patterns don't have mistakes. It’s not high-tech at all. We have some old desks and a lot of shelves piled high with stock. Sometimes the light in the bazaar is a bit dim, so we have to use extra bulbs to see the fine work on the fabric. It’s noisy outside with the rickshaws and vendors shouting, but inside we just try to get the packing done. We don’t have a website or anything like that, we just talk to the people who walk in or the regular wholesalers we’ve known for decades. Lunch is usually brought from home and we eat it right there on the counter. The shop is small, but it’s full of stuff. We try to keep things organized but it never stays that way for long. That’s just how it goes in Mochpura and we are used to the chaos.