Nirmal Art

We are located right across from the Khanderao Market on Ajwa Road. It is always busy outside with people buying vegetables and shouting. Inside Swami Sadan, it is a bit quieter but still active. We do art work, mostly framing and some painting supplies. There are always bits of wood shavings and scraps of paper on the floor because we are always cutting things to size. My hands are usually stained with some kind of ink or glue by midday. It’s just the way it goes when you work with these materials. We have some old frames hanging on the walls that have been there for years. Customers bring in photos of their kids or old posters that are falling apart. We try to fix them up the best we can. The light in the shop is okay, but we use a desk lamp for the fine details. Sometimes the traffic on Ajwa Road makes it hard for people to park, so they just double park and run in. It’s a bit chaotic but it’s our routine. We’ve been at this spot for a long time. It feels like home even though it's just a workplace. We just keep our heads down and finish the pieces people leave with us. We have a small transistor radio that plays local stations all day long. The music helps when we have a lot of repetitive work to do on the larger frames. It keeps the atmosphere from being too quiet when we are alone in the back.