Mehta Art & Crafts

Being on the Lake Palace Hotel Road means there is always someone walking by the front door. We are right at Rang Niwas. The shop isn't huge, but we pack a lot of items into it. Every morning we open the shutters and sweep the front step before the sun gets too high. The dust from the road is a never-ending battle for us, honestly. We have all sorts of things on the shelves, from small carvings to bigger pieces that take two people to lift. It’s a bit cramped inside because we try to keep a good variety of items for people to see. Most days are spent talking to people who wander in after seeing the hotel nearby. We don't do much fancy advertising; people just find us while they're exploring this part of Udaipur. The light in the shop is okay, but we often take things outside to show the real colors in the sun. It's just a few of us working here. We know the neighbors well, and we usually share a kettle of tea around mid-morning. The wooden floors creak a bit when you walk on them. Sometimes we spend hours just dusting the finer details of the crafts we keep. It's a slow pace, but it suits us. We don't have a computer system for everything, so there's a lot of handwriting in the ledgers. It’s just how we’ve always done things here.