Billing for your stationery and book shop in Lakshadweep
Notebooks before term, a cable for a teacher and a photocopy by the page, all on one phone.
Tools for a counter that stocks up once and sells for months
Daily reports
Each day's notebooks and pens on their own lines, so last year's first week of term can be read before this year's order is sent.
Bills on your phone
One bill for a teacher's long list, sent on WhatsApp to the school office on another island before the boat leaves.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the exercise books are close to zero in the weeks before term, with time left to add them to the order.
Online orders
A school office's list sent the evening before, so the goods are packed when the teacher arrives off the boat.
The children who come to the stationery counter
The stationery counter's customers are children and their families, and the islands' families work on the sea and among the palms.
- The main occupations in Lakshadweep are fishing, coconut cultivation and coir twisting, and tourism is an emerging industry.
Term opens on a date, and the ship does not know it
The notebooks that were meant to come before term
Term opens on a fixed day, and the notebooks, geometry boxes and pens for it come on a ship that keeps its own day. If the sea is rough in the weeks before, the ship is late, and the first week of term has children with no copies and a shop with empty shelves. You wrote the order from memory, and your memory said fewer than were needed. The parents who came on the first morning went away with half of their list, and some did not come back for the rest.
The teacher who asks for a cable or a pen drive
Teachers use phones and tablets in class now, and they come to the stationery counter for a cable, a pen drive or a plug. These are not what you usually stock, and each one is bought in ones and twos from the mainland. When a teacher asks for the same thing three weeks running, you only remember that you were asked, and not how often, or by whom, or whether the cable was ever ordered.
A teacher's list for a school that is on another island
A teacher comes from a school on another island with a long list, buys it all in one visit and leaves on the boat that afternoon. The school office on the other island wants to know what was bought and what it cost, and the teacher has a list in his pocket and no bill in his hand. The head of the school asks in the next week what was spent, and the answer is a guess.
Last year's term-opening week, read before this year's order
Last year's first week of term, read before this year's order is sent
Every bill takes its notebooks and pens off the stock, and the daily report keeps each day on its own line. Before you write the term-opening order, open last year's first week and read the numbers. You buy for what children really took, and not for what you remember, and the boxes that come are enough for the children who come.
The school's bill split by notebook, pen and geometry box, for the head teacher's year
Make each notebook, each pen and each geometry box its own line on the bill. The head teacher reads the bill by kind, and at the year's end he adds the notebooks, the pens and the boxes apart, which is the split his accounts ask for. He has it as a list, not as one number he has to take on trust.
The cable asked for three weeks running, finally noted
Teachers keep asking for the same cable or pen drive, and you remember only that they asked. Note each ask as an order to the supplier for that cable, and each time a teacher asks again you see the earlier day. When the ship brings it, note it as arrived and make the bill.
What island stationery and book shop owners ask
The exercise books come on the ship that lands just before term. What do I note when the cartons are opened?
Note each kind that arrived with its count as soon as the cartons are opened, and leave out any carton that missed the ship. The shelf's count then tells you on the first morning of term which kinds you can promise a parent and which you cannot.
Before he sails, which items on the teacher's list do I hold in full? How do I tell him?
Read the count of each item from the phone. The ones with enough are billed now. Say the short ones plainly, so he can carry the news back to the head.
Only part of the school's pre-term list is on the ship. What can the school have on the first day?
Bill what is on your shelf and share it on WhatsApp. Order the rest from the supplier.
Schools and classrooms on the islands
Lakshadweep runs 32 government schools across 10 inhabited islands. Each island has only the shops that stand on it. A term-opening list from every school lands on them, and a shop on a small island is the only counter its school can reach.
The administration says all its classrooms are now smart classrooms, every school has internet, and tablets have been given to teachers. A teacher with a tablet comes to the stationery counter for the small things that go with it.