Dawad Masala

We are located in Bastin Bazar, which is a pretty lively spot in West Burdwan. If you’ve ever walked through the market here, you know how crowded and loud it gets. Dawad Masala is right in the thick of it. We spend our days surrounded by sacks of raw ingredients and the sound of the market outside. It’s a family-run thing, really. My uncle started it, and now a few of us keep it running. We don’t have a website or any of those fancy things; we just talk to the people who walk through the bazaar. Most of our customers are people from the nearby villages who come to buy their weekly supplies. We try to keep things simple. We buy the whole spices, clean them by hand, and then get them ready for sale. Sometimes the weather in West Burdwan makes it hard to dry things properly, so we have to be extra careful. The shop isn't very big, so we have to stack things high up to the ceiling. It’s a bit of a squeeze sometimes when three or four people are inside at once. We don't use any chemical stuff, just what we get from the growers. It’s honest work, even if it leaves us tired and covered in spice dust by evening. We like being part of Bastin Bazar. It’s been our home for a long time, and we don't plan on moving anywhere else anytime soon.