Shouaib Chicken Shop

Shouaib Chicken Shop is right on the main road at Ratiya Marg in Sangam Vihar. The address is 261/2. If you know Som Bazar, you know how crazy it gets here. On market days, the street is so full of people you can barely walk. Our shop is right in the middle of that chaos. We have the live birds in the back and we spend the whole day processing them. It is a messy job and there are feathers everywhere no matter how much we sweep. The sound of the Ratiya Marg traffic is constant. Horns, engines, and people talking. We have a small counter where we do all the cutting. It is a bit cramped inside because we have to keep the cages and the cleaning area separate. The heat in Sangam Vihar can be brutal in June, so we have a couple of old fans that just move the hot air around. We know the regulars who come in every week. They don't need to say much, we already know what they want. It is a basic shop with just the essentials. We don't bother with fancy lighting. Just a couple of bulbs so we can see what we are doing when it gets dark. It is hard work and the days are long, but this is the spot we have been in for years. The Ratiya Marg road is always under some kind of repair, it seems. There is always dust in the air. We just keep the shop doors open and hope for a breeze.