Neelam Metal & Hardware

Our shop is tucked into Shop No. 4 of the Abhishek building on V.P. Road. We’re right there in Vile Parle West, not far from the Karla Railway Station. You can usually hear the trains passing by if it's quiet enough, but it rarely is. The shop is filled from floor to ceiling with all kinds of metal parts, tools, and hardware. Sometimes it feels like we have a thousand different sizes of screws and bolts, and finding the right one can take a minute if you don't know the shelves like we do. People from the neighborhood stop in all the time, sometimes just to ask for a bit of advice on a home repair. We’ve been in this spot for years and have watched the street change around us. It’s a small space, so we have to be clever about where we put everything. We don't have a computer system that tells us where everything is; we just remember. In the mornings, we roll up the shutters and sweep the front before the first customers arrive. It’s a steady stream of people all day long. Some are contractors looking for specific supplies, and others are just neighbors needing a new padlock. We keep things simple and just try to have what people are looking for. It’s a bit crowded and dusty, but it’s a proper hardware store.