Thatheri Bazar

You hear this lane before you find it: the ring of hammers on metal from workshops where the thatheras, hereditary brass and copper smiths, have worked for generations. Shops sell kamandals (ritual water pots), puja utensils, lotas, bells, oil lamps and solid brass figures of gods, much of it still beaten by hand and sold by weight rather than by label. Visitors skip the lane because it reads as a row of workshops and never advertises itself, and that is exactly why the statues here come out heavier and better finished than tourist-grade castings.

Buy brass the old way: from the smiths' own lane, by weight, under the sound of hammers