Lucky Silk Store

Central Market in Lajpat Nagar II is always a bit of a madhouse. Our store at number 40 is right in the middle of it all. If you’ve been here, you know how loud it gets with all the shoppers and the street food guys yelling. Inside the shop, we have rolls of silk stacked all the way to the ceiling. It’s a lot of folding and unfolding all day long. My back usually aches by five o'clock from leaning over the counters. We have some stools for people to sit on while they look at the different patterns and colors. The lighting is very bright because you need to see the threads clearly. Sometimes the air conditioner struggles when the door keeps opening and closing. We get a lot of regulars who have been coming to us for years. I know most of their names by now. We drink a lot of water because talking all day makes your throat dry. The floor is mostly covered in bits of thread and discarded plastic wraps from the new stock. It’s a small space for how much we keep in here. You have to walk sideways through some of the aisles. At the end of the day, we have to tidy everything back up which takes a good hour. Then we head out into the Delhi traffic. It’s just the daily routine for us at the silk store.