Kasturi Gupta Menon speaks about Kamala with a quiet maternal pride. She is conducting a tour of the landmark handloom and handicrafts store in the city that she has been looking after since 2010. The store is only one large L-shaped room at the ICCR building in Ho Chi Minh Street, but the tour takes long, because Menon stops at every shelf, every display, and describes every handpicked sari and object in detail, and every description ends in a story.
The Bengal taant saris alone come in at least three varieties: Phulia (for Tangail) and Shantipur in Nadia and Begampur in Hooghly. Some customers will drop in only for the Barmer curtains with their delicate applique work of white on white, which also hang in the store, illuminating the glass front.