Mataran Hardware

Mataran Hardware is tucked away near the Purulia Post Office in the Gopal Nagar section of Man Bazar. It’s the kind of shop where you have to move a bucket or a pile of shovels just to get to the back counter. We have drawers filled with every kind of nut and bolt you can think of. Finding the exact one sometimes takes a bit of digging though. The building is old. The wooden floors creak whenever someone walks in from the street. Being near the post office means we get a lot of foot traffic from people running errands. They usually stop in because they realized they need a new padlock or a tin of paint for a fence at home. We try to keep a bit of everything on the shelves, from plumbing fixtures to basic garden tools. It gets pretty cramped inside. This is especially true when we get a new shipment of PVC pipes that take up all the floor space. My father started this shop years ago. Not much has changed since then, except maybe the brands we carry. We don't use a computer for the sales. It’s all done with a pen and a paper pad. The dust from the street settles on the merchandise, so we spend the slow hours with a rag trying to keep things looking decent. It’s a simple life in Man Bazar, just helping neighbors find what they need to fix their houses.