Billing for your hardware and paint shop in Himachal Pradesh
The short building season, the snow-week tools and the sickle sharpened at the counter, kept on your phone.
What a hill hardware shop keeps on the phone, from the dry weeks to the first snow
Daily reports
The dry weeks of last season kept day by day, so the next season's cement is ordered from what the shop sold and not from memory.
Low stock warnings
A warning that the snow shovels, tarpaulins or crowbars are running low, in the week the forecast turns.
Orders to suppliers
The big order for the building window sent to your supplier in good time, and each lot noted as the lorry unloads.
The orchard's crate nails, the roof week before the snow and a sickle sharpened for nothing
The weeks the orchard knocks its crates together
In the apple weeks every orchard needs crates, and crates need nails, wire and strapping by the kilo. The owner sends a boy down with a list, and he is back the next day for the same, and again. The nail bin is empty by the second morning, the lorry from below can climb with only so much on it, and the orchard that finds the bin bare sends its boy to the next town and does not come back for the wire.
The roof that is checked the week before the snow
Before the first heavy snow every roof in the valley gets looked at. Slates are replaced, tin sheets are nailed down, a leak is stopped with tar. People arrive for ridge nails, sheets and sealant all in the same days. The shop runs out of the one thing a roof needs, and the roof that waits for the next lot carries the snow without it.
The sickle sharpened for nothing, the axe handle fitted for tea
The shop is also a workshop. Before the harvest the farmers bring sickles to be sharpened. A man buys an axe head and asks you to fit a handle. A tin of nails is easy to bill, but the sharpening and the handle are done at the counter in ten minutes and paid for with a few coins or a cup of tea, and nobody writes them down. The shop's skill is the part that is never counted.
Una's factories, the Mandi highways and Shimla's bazaars, as a hardware shop hears of them
A hardware shop on the hills hears about building and trade in other districts from the people who come in, and these are the facts they talk about.
- Una is well developed in industry because it is close to Punjab. Mehatpur, Gagret, Tahliwal and Amb are its main industrial centres.
- Mandi town sits where National Highways 20, 21 and 70 meet, and the whole district depends on it for trade and commerce.
- In Shimla, Lakkar Bazaar is the market for wooden crafts and Lower Bazaar is for daily items.
Cement ordered before the window, roof goods before the snow and the sharpening as a job
The dry weeks when digging is allowed and the lorry can climb
When the monsoon ban is over, digging starts again and the lorry can climb with a full load. Open those dry weeks of last season on your daily report and read what sold, week by week: cement, bars, sheets, nails. The big lot goes where the weeks were busiest, so the mason at your counter finds the bag he came for.
Crowbars, spades and rope, wanted by the whole lane after a slip
When a slip of earth blocks the lane, the whole lane comes at once for a crowbar, a spade and a length of rope. Name each as its own item with its own count, so you know at the counter that the spades are there and the crowbars are not. The order goes that day, and the next slip does not find the crowbar shelf bare.
Sharpening and handle-fitting as jobs with a rate
Make sharpening a sickle and fitting a handle items sold by the job, each with its own few coins. The axe head and the wooden handle go on the bill as their own items, with the fitting beside them. The workshop in the corner shows up in the day's sales instead of in the tea tray. A farmer who sees the sharpening on his bill knows what he paid for.
What hardware and paint shop owners in Himachal ask
A farmer offers tea and a few coins for the sickle I sharpened. How do I show it?
Write the job at its rate on his bill and take what he pays. The tea stays a kindness and not a sale that was never written, and anything he leaves unpaid is on his page.
In crate weeks the orchard's boy comes down every day for the same list, and the nail bin is empty by the second morning. What can I do?
Keep nails and wire as items by the kilo and read the count each evening. The warning shows the bin falling, so the order goes to the supplier before the second morning and the boy is not sent down for nothing.
A handle I fitted breaks again a week later. How do I record the second fitting?
Name each handle with its make, as an item with its own rate. The first fitting and the second are both on the customer's page with their days, so you read that this make broke within a week, and you stop ordering it.
Monsoon rules on cutting and digging in Mandi and Shimla
Mandi's Deputy Commissioner banned hill cutting and excavation until 31 August under the Disaster Management Act because of heavy rainfall risk. Digging on a slope in that district waits until the ban is lifted.
In the monsoon, Shimla Municipal Corporation stops digging for new construction, even on recently passed building maps, to avoid landslips; extra-storey work is exempt. Building upward is still allowed in the wet months, and building outward waits for the dry weeks.