ARZANI

If you head down Jagatpur Main Road in Kolkata and walk into the Jagatpur Bazar, you’ll find us right there on the ground floor. Being inside the bazaar means it’s never quiet. There is always the sound of people haggling over fish or vegetables just a few feet away from our door. We are located in the Aswini Nagar area, and it’s the kind of place where everyone seems to know everyone else’s business. The shop itself is pretty straightforward, just a basic floor plan with enough room to get things done. We spend a lot of time dealing with the humidity, which can be brutal in this part of Kolkata, especially during the monsoon months when the rain hammers down on the roof. We start our day by moving some of the stock around and making sure the front area is clear of any trash that blew in from the market. It’s a lot of manual work, and our hands are rarely clean for long. We don’t have any big signs or bright lights to bring people in; they just know we are here because we’ve been here. By the time evening rolls around, the bazaar gets even more crowded, and we are usually busy right up until it’s time to close. It’s a bit of a squeeze sometimes, but we make it work for us.