Kuldip Singh & Bros.

Our shop is at 4922 in Hauz Qazi. If you’ve ever been to this part of the city, you know how tight the lanes are. It’s an old building and we’ve been here for a long time. The space is pretty cramped because we have to store a lot of stock in a small area. There are piles of goods everywhere you look. We don’t have a fancy sign or a big glass front. It’s just an old-fashioned shop where we deal with customers face to face. It gets very hot in the summer, and we mostly just have a couple of ceiling fans that don't do much but move the warm air around. We start early in the morning before the heat gets too bad and the streets get too jammed with people. Most of the day is spent talking to regulars who have been coming to us for years. We know most of them by name. There’s always someone stopping by for a chat or to ask about a specific item. We don’t do much online or with modern technology; it’s mostly just pen and paper for us. The walls are thick and the ceiling is high, which is how they built things back then. It’s a family-run kind of thing, and we just keep doing what the previous generation did. It’s honest work and it keeps us going. The locks are heavy.