Fresh Fruit Juice Centre

You can find us at Shop No 2 on Sahar Road in Andheri East. Being near the airport area means it’s always crowded and there’s a lot of dust from the road. We spend a good part of the morning washing the fruit and stacking it up in the glass display. The oranges and watermelons make a bright pile that people notice when they walk past. The sound of the blender is going almost constantly from noon until we close up at night. It’s pretty loud, so we have to speak up when talking to the customers. We have a small sink behind the counter that leaks a tiny bit, so there’s usually a rag sitting there. The floor gets sticky sometimes from the juice spills, so we keep a mop handy. It’s a small shop, mostly just the counter and the fruit crates. People usually drink their juice standing up on the sidewalk or take it with them in plastic cups. Sahar Road is always full of taxis and people carrying suitcases. We see a lot of tired faces looking for something cold. We just keep peeling and chopping throughout the day. The light outside gets very yellow in the evenings before we switch on the shop lights. It’s just us here, Fresh Fruit Juice Centre, doing the same thing every day. When the fruit delivery truck arrives, we have to move quickly to get everything inside before it blocks the narrow road too much for the passing cars.