Beena Gupta

Our place at 2/22 Babu Genu Rd is right in the middle of all the action. This street is always moving, with people pushing carts and motorbikes weaving through the crowds. Beena Gupta runs things here, and it is a very hands-on operation. The shop is small, so we have to use every inch of the walls for storage. If you look up, there are shelves reaching all the way to the ceiling. We have an old wooden desk near the front where all the receipts are kept in a metal spike. It gets quite dusty because the doors are always open to the street. People from the neighborhood stop by just to say hello or to ask for a bit of advice on what they should buy. We don’t have a big corporate structure or anything like that. It is just a few people trying to make sure the customers get what they need without a lot of fuss. The light inside is a bit dim because the buildings on Babu Genu Rd are so close together that the sun barely reaches the ground floor. We use those long fluorescent tubes that flicker a little when you first turn them on. Every evening, we sweep the floor and pull down the heavy iron shutters. It’s a simple routine that we’ve been doing for years. We aren't trying to be anything we’re not, just a local business on a busy road. It’s a bit cramped, but it works for us and our customers.