K. A. Topiwala

Our shop is right at Nyaymandir in Laheripura, right opposite Sursagar. It’s a very old part of the city, and K. A. Topiwala has been a part of this landscape for a long time. If you stand at our door, you can see the water of Sursagar across the street. It’s a nice view when the sun goes down, even with all the crowds. We sell traditional headwear and caps, mostly. The shop is small and smells like old fabric and wood. We don’t have air conditioning or bright neon lights. We keep the doors open to let the breeze from the lake in. Most of our customers are people who have been coming to us for years, sometimes bringing their kids along. We don’t do any marketing or online stuff. We just sit on our stools, wait for people to come in, and show them what’s on the shelves. Sometimes we chat about the weather or how much the city has changed. The traffic around Nyaymandir is always a mess, but we are used to it by now. It’s a humble place. We don't have a big mission; we just want to sell good caps at a fair price. The shelves are high and we use an old wooden ladder to reach the top boxes. It’s been this way since my father’s time. We just keep the tradition going as long as we can because that is what we know.