Cottage Crafts Emporium

Our place is located over at 16, Pologround, right on Saheli Marg. It’s an old building, and you can tell by the way the floors creak when you walk through the aisles. We have been here at Cottage Crafts Emporium for a long time. It’s filled with all sorts of handmade items, mostly stuff that comes from local people around the area. There’s a lot of wood carvings, textiles, and some brass items that gather dust if I don’t wipe them down every single morning. I spend a lot of my time just talking to the craftsmen who bring their work in. Some of them have been working with us for decades. The shop has a specific smell—a mix of old wood, incense, and maybe a bit of dampness when it rains outside. It’s not a modern place with bright lights and air conditioning. We mostly just keep the doors open and let the breeze in. Some days it's very busy with people looking for gifts, and other days I just sit by the window and watch the traffic go by on Saheli Marg. It’s a slow pace of life, which suits me just fine. I handle the books, the cleaning, and the customers all by myself most days. It’s hard work keeping everything organized, but it’s what I know. We don’t have a website or anything like that, just the physical shop where people can come and see things for themselves.