Tahir Mutton Shop

This shop has been in Andheri West for a long time now. We are tucked into Shop No 3 of the Shabnam Appartment building. It’s a small space, mostly just the chopping blocks and the weighing scales. I start work while most people are still sleeping, usually around 4 or 5 in the morning when the fresh stock arrives. It’s a lot of physical work, lifting and cutting all day. The residents of the apartments above us are our main customers. They come down with their bags and we chat about the price of goods or how the local cricket team is doing. We don’t have a website or any fancy marketing stuff. People just know where we are by word of mouth. Sometimes the line gets long on Sunday mornings, stretching out onto the sidewalk. We try to work as fast as we can, but prepping meat takes time to do properly. My father taught me how to handle the knives when I was just a teenager, and I’ve been doing it ever since. The shop is simple, with white tiles and a big fan overhead to keep the air moving. It’s just an honest day’s work for us. We close up when the stock is gone and head home to do it all again tomorrow morning.