Budh Singh & Sons

If you know Delhi, you know how packed Chandni Chowk is, and that is where you’ll find Budh Singh & Sons at number 1854. This building has been here for a very long time, and you can feel the history in the walls. The lanes are narrow and the crowds are thick, so getting anything in or out of the shop takes a bit of planning and a lot of patience. Inside, it’s a bit cramped because we have so much stock piled up. We deal with all sorts of things, and the shelves are usually overflowing. It’s dark in the back of the shop, and we use old wooden ladders to reach the top shelves. We don't have air conditioning, just some ceiling fans that hum away all day. The noise from the street is constant—horns, people shouting, and the general bustle of the market. We’ve seen the neighborhood change over the decades, but our spot at 1854 stays pretty much the same. We know our customers by name, and many of them have been coming to us for generations. We don't use fancy software to track our inventory; mostly it’s just ledgers and memory. It might seem chaotic to someone visiting for the first time, but we have our own system that works. Budh Singh & Sons is just a part of the fabric of Chandni Chowk, doing things the old-fashioned way.