The Eye

"He who asks a question remains a fool for five minutes, He who does not ask remains a fool forever."

After all my obsservations and explorations, I was very enthusiastic to choose my final problem area. After finalizing my shop, I decided to interview the shopkeeper to get more information about how he works and all the other processes.

While I was going through the lanes of Chandni Chowk a small shop with few beads and some utensils filled with water caught my attention. I went closer to see what the guy with colored hands was doing. I realized that it was a beads dye shop. The boy told me that his name was Najum and is eighteen years old. I asked him from how long was he in this work. He told me that he was doing the same thing from last 10 years. He also said that all his brothers are in the same business and have small shops in Chandni Chowk only.

I wanted to ask some personal questions so I asked him if I should continue. He said,’’Jab tak mere ko koi dikkat nai hogi puch lo.” I asked him about his customers and earnings per day. His customers were around 20 to 25 per day and he didn’t reply to the second part of my question. I understood that he was not comfortable to answer the question so I started asking him about his studies and came to know that he was 10^th fail and did not like studying.

 I asked him “Kitne paise lete ho dye krne k?” He said that he charges Rs 40 per kg to dye the beads and gives back the beads to the customers in fifteen to twenty minutes. He added that it takes 5 minutes for crystal beads to get dyed and fifteen to twenty minutes to other beads. He had eight colors and mixes them to produce new colors. The basic colors that he had were Pink, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Copper and black. I asked him how he manages to do neon colors and colors of two shades on the same bead. 

He said, “Usk lie machine ki zroorat hai Jo mere paas nahi hai.” I realized that he is not satisfied with his earnings and wants to do more, but when I asked him if he faces any problem, he said ‘’nahi, kuch b nahi.” Also he didn’t tell me anything about the cylinder he uses for gas and didn’t let me take pictures of his gas cylinder also. 

When I knew I had collected enough data for my research, I thanked the shopkeeper and bid adieu to the hustle bustle and aroma filled streets of Chandni Chowk.