Ramachandramurthi Stationery Merchant

Opening up the shop at No. 19 Balaji Layout is the first thing that happens every morning. It's located in the Binny Compound area, right on Kumaran Road, which can get pretty crowded with people rushing to work. Ramachandramurthi Stationery Merchant has been here through many seasons. Inside, the shelves are packed tight with all sorts of things like registers, notebooks, and packets of pens. There is a specific smell of paper and old cardboard that hits you when you walk in. Sometimes the stacks of paper get so high they almost block the light from the front door. We spend a good chunk of the day just counting out items or reorganizing the shelves because things always get messy. It’s not a large place, but we managed to fit a lot into this corner of the compound. Customers come in looking for a specific kind of pencil or maybe some ledgers for their own businesses nearby. We don't have a computer system that works half the time, so a lot of stuff is still written down by hand in our own books. The fan overhead makes a clicking sound that we’ve all just gotten used to over the years. Being a merchant on Kumaran Road means seeing the same faces every day. It’s steady work and it keeps us busy enough from morning until we pull the shutters down at night. It is just a regular stationery shop.