Billing for your stationery and book shop in Rajasthan
The class-wise book list, the notebook order from the school and the pens by the piece, all counted.
Titles counted one by one, a school's order on a page, last July read again
Exam week: pens, clipboards and geometry boxes gone by noon
In the week before the board exams, students buy blue pens by the handful, a clipboard, a geometry box and a pencil pouch, often the evening before a paper. Count each as its own item, and the exam calendar tells you which paper is next: the pouch for a drawing paper, the geometry box for a maths paper. Ask the wholesaler for each in the days before its paper.
The village stationers' dozens, on a side of their own
Treat the village shops that buy notebooks and pens by the dozen as a business side of their own. They apply to buy on credit, their orders sit apart from the counter's, and you see who has taken what and what is due.
The year's books on one page, half now and half after the scholarship money
Open a page in the family's name and put the books on it with their date. They pay what they have, and the rest stays on the page until the scholarship money comes. The next year the page shows what the child had.
Rajasthan's districts, and the students who come from them
Students come to a book counter from every part of the state, and each carries the name of a district.
- Jaipur's Johari Bazaar is the hub for gemstone jewellery, and Tripolia Bazaar is known for lac bangles and textiles.
- Udaipur is renowned for miniature paintings and marble carvings, and Shilpgram is its craft village.
- Ajmer's industries that work with minerals include feldspar grinding, cement, marble, granite and salt production.
- Jodhpur is a major hub for carved wooden furniture, wrought iron and handicrafts, with a handicraft special economic zone at Boranada.
- For Sikar, the Rajasthan Foundation lists dal, edible oil, cattle feed, granite tiles and PVC pipes among local industry opportunities.
- Nagaur trades in dried red chillies on a huge scale, and its cattle fair is held every November.
When a new class list lands and half of last year's books are still on the shelf
A recruitment notice, and the guide that is gone in three days
When a recruitment notice comes out, every candidate wants the previous years' papers for that exam, in the language he sits, and the notice often lands while the counter is full of school books. The papers are old and few, and the shop that cannot say at once which years it holds sends him across to the rival in plain sight, and his pens go into the same basket there.
A village family's year of books in one visit
A family from a village travels to the town once a year for a child's whole set of books. The bill is large, they pay part of it on the spot, and if one title is not on the shelf they have to make the journey again. The shop that cannot say whether it has the title before the bus is back in the village loses the sale.
The village stationer who buys notebooks by the dozen
Small shops in villages around buy notebooks, pens and registers by the dozen from the town shop, to resell. Each one pays when he next comes. A dozen here and half a dozen there become a list of who took what, and the only place it lives is the owner's memory.
Tools for a counter of textbooks, notebooks and pens
Bills on your phone
A bill with a line for every book of a class, so a parent can check the twelve titles before leaving.
Low stock warnings
A warning when one textbook falls to a couple of copies, on the very morning the list is issued.
Daily reports
Copies sold of each title, day by day, in the weeks when schools reopen.
Orders to suppliers
The list for the book wholesaler, made from the titles that are short and not from memory.
What Rajasthan book and stationery dealers ask
A title ran out first in the busiest weeks and its buyers went next door. How do I see which title it was?
Read the days of those weeks by title. The title whose count reached nothing first is the one that sent buyers next door. Order more of it before the next busy weeks begin.
The school's list has twelve titles. How do I find the one I lack before the bus leaves?
Open each title of the list in the stock, one by one, and the count says whether you have it. The one at nothing is the missing title, found while the family still stands at the counter.
Previous years' papers are sold for each exam. Can I keep them apart by exam?
Make each exam's papers their own item, named with the exam and the year. A student asks for the exam he sits and you tap that item. The count of each shows which exam the notice week emptied.
Chaura Rasta, Jaipur's book market
Jaipur's Chaura Rasta market has about 70 wholesale and retail book stores among 240 shops, and over Rs 100 crore of books are sold there each year, a 2019 trade report said. A lane where one in three shops sells books is a lane where a customer compares prices from door to door.
A Chaura Rasta book wholesaler says July to October is the busiest time of year, when schools and colleges reopen and students come to buy books. For a book shop that is the one season when a title out of stock is lost to the shop next door within the hour.