Swaminathan Chettiar & Co.

Swaminathan Chettiar & Co. is right at 77, SN High Road, just across from the Head Post Office at Tirunelveli Junction. This part of town is always moving and full of life. You have the post office crowds and people coming from the railway station all day long. Our building has been here for quite some time, and you can definitely tell by the way the walls and the floor look. We don't believe in spending a lot of money on fancy renovations when the current setup works just fine for our daily tasks. Inside, it's mostly heavy wooden counters and old shelves filled with whatever we need. It smells a bit like paper and old wood in here, which I’ve grown to like. We start our work early, right around the time the first buses pull into the junction. The ceiling fans hum all day to keep the southern humidity away. We handle our business the old-fashioned way, with a lot of face-to-face talking and handwritten notes in our books. It’s not that we are against using technology, we just find the old ways more reliable for the type of work we do. Our customers are often people we’ve known for many years. They drop by, have a quick chat about the weather or the local news, and then we get down to business. It’s a very steady rhythm. When the post office closes for the day, things finally quiet down around here.