Rang Roop Saree Wale

Our shop, Rang Roop Saree Wale, is at No. 139 in Sadar Chowk Bazar. If you’ve been to the bazaar, you know it’s a total maze of shops and people. We are right in the middle of all that chaos. Every morning we roll up the metal shutters and start setting things out. The shop isn't very big, so we have to use every inch of the walls to display the sarees. We have stacks and stacks of them reaching all the way to the roof. There is barely enough room for three or four people to stand inside at once. Most of our customers are locals who have been coming to this market for years. We don't have air conditioning, just a couple of ceiling fans that try their best to keep the heat away. The floor is covered with a white sheet where we sit and show the fabrics to anyone who comes in. It’s a lot of folding and unfolding all day long. By the evening, our backs usually ache from sitting on the floor. The noise from the street is constant with horns honking and people shouting, but we don't even notice it anymore. We don't have a computer here. Everything is written down in a big ledger book with a red cover. It’s the way we’ve always done it. We just try to get through the day and hope the rain doesn't leak through the front door.