Swami Ayyappan Flower Shop

Our shop is right on Station Road in Matunga. If you know the area, you know how hectic it gets with the trains and the commuters. We are right in the thick of it. The shop is small and usually smells strongly of jasmine and marigolds because those are the big sellers for the morning temple crowd. We have to be ready very early. By the time the first trains are running, we already have garlands hanging up and ready to go. There’s not much room to move around inside, so we do a lot of our work standing near the entrance. We use a lot of thread and needles for the garlands, and you’ll often see one of us sitting there just focusing on that for hours. It’s a lot of repetitive movement, but it’s what we do. The noise from the station is constant, but you stop noticing it after a while. We don't have fancy packaging or anything like that. Most of our flowers are sold by weight or by the string. It’s a very traditional way of doing things, and it suits the neighborhood. We see the same faces every morning, people grabbing something quickly before they head to work or the temple. It’s a fast-paced environment, but there’s a nice rhythm to it once you get used to the chaos of Station Road. We just keep our heads down and keep the flowers fresh as best we can.