Surendra Pal Singh

Being out here on Lakhnawali Road in Surajpur means dealing with a lot of trucks and heavy vehicles passing by all the time. The shop is a simple setup near Gautam Budh Nagar. We have been in this spot for a long while now, watching the road get wider and the traffic get heavier every year. The morning starts with clearing the front area and checking what needs to be done for the day. It’s a bit out of the main city, so things feel a little slower but the work is still constant. We handle a lot of things related to the local needs of people living around Greater Noida. There’s a lot of open space around us compared to the packed markets in the center of Noida. We keep a desk in the back where we do the paperwork and the front is where we meet anyone who drops by. The walls are mostly bare except for some old calendars and a few tools hanging up on nails. Most of the people who come here are locals we have known for years. We talk about the weather or the new construction happening down the road while we work on things. It’s not a place with shiny floors or bright lights, just a practical space where we get things finished. When the sun starts to go down over the fields nearby, we start packing up the tools and making sure everything is locked tight.