Jagdish Lal & Sons

We are located at 994 in Chawri Bazar. This business has been in the family for generations and we have seen the market change a lot. We deal in paper and wedding stationery mostly. The shop is small and usually packed with stacks of boxes reaching all the way to the ceiling. You really have to watch your step when you walk in here. Chawri Bazar is a maze of alleys, but people seem to find us eventually. We don't have fancy air conditioning or bright lights. It's just a traditional shop where we sit on the floor or small wooden stools to talk to our customers. We know most of the other shopkeepers on the street by their first names. We drink tea together in the afternoons when the rush of the morning slows down. The work involves a lot of lifting and carrying heavy reams of paper back and forth. My sons help out with the inventory and the sales when they are not at school. We don't use much technology here, just a basic ledger for the accounts and a pen. Everything is done the old way with a paper trail. It’s a bit dusty because of all the old paper stored in the back, but we don’t mind it much. We see all kinds of people coming through the doors looking for something specific for their big day. We try to help them out. It’s a long day, but it’s what we know.