The subway’s dark corridors are a place where most New Yorkers rush from one place to another.

But Sudhir Patel’s destination is the subway. He spends on average eight hours a day underground, within earshot of the screaming subway trains.

Patel, 36, from the northwestern state of Gujarat, India, never thought he would end up selling newspapers in Manhattan. In India, he was trained as a textile-mill technician. When he arrived in New York 11 years ago, he was not sure what to do. So he started helping a friend out in a subway station newsstand.

Sudhir Patel came to the U.S. 11 years ago. Since then, he has always worked at newsstands.

It did not take long before he began to love the newsstand business. Within weeks, Patel applied for a lease from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and set up his shop at 23^rd Street and Park Avenue at a cost of $5,000. When this lease ran out, he leased another newsstand on Wall Street, which he still runs. He now manages two additional newsstands, one at Columbus Circle and the other at 77th and Lexington. He juggles his time between the three places, and employs two workers in each.

The sound of subway trains coming into the station every two to three minutes can be deafening.

"You get used to the noise," he says of the constant rattling of subway trains whizzing in and out of the station.

Patel has gotten used to many things in this country. He says he likes the general cleanliness of the United States best, at least when he is above ground. "You can get all dirty when you’re down here all day," he says of the dust that accumulates all over his clothes and face.

Patel’s newsstand at Columbus Circle is often taken for an information booth, and a steady stream of tourists approach him with questions throughout the day. He provides not just newspapers, magazines, candy and sodas, but also directions to Times Square and other landmarks.

"Everyday I see hundreds of tourists who ask me how to get to South Ferry," he says. Patel’s newsstand is in front of the 1 and 9 train platform, so he has to direct the tourists to the other side of the station.

Several times a day, Patel is approached by non-English speakers, and not only tourists. "People start talking to me in Spanish, and just assume I’m Hispanic," he says, chuckling. "I don’t speak Spanish. The only thing I can say is some prices, like ‘sesenta y cinco centavos’ [65 cents]."

Patel likes his job because he gets to capture quick snapshots of people’s lives as they hurry to his newsstand and hop into the trains. "We see all kinds of people down here," he says. "You also recognize the people who buy the same newspaper and take the same subway every morning."

Manik Muhammed, one of the morning-shift workers, says Patel is a good boss. "Of course he is," says Muhammed, smiling directly at his boss. "He’s also a friend." Muhammed came from Dinaspur, Bangladesh, two years ago. His language is Bengali, but fortunately he speaks enough Hindi to communicate with Patel. "Both Hindi and Bengali have their roots in Sanskrit, so they’re similar in many ways," says Patel.

However, this is not the easiest of jobs. Patel and Muhammed have to keep their eyes on all the candy and magazines, and serve customers at the same time. All the transactions are done at breakneck speed, as they try to serve customers before the next train comes in. "Nothing is easy here," Muhammed says while his boss nods. "Everything is hard."

"The worst thing about this job is that it used to be dangerous,but it’s not anymore," says Patel pointing to two policemen walking around the station. He says New York is safer now and that the only "crime" he has to deal with is stolen candy. When school is over, groups of kids surround his newsstand and sometimes one of them takes a candy bar or gum. "I yell at them, but I cannot do anything else," he says. "But it is not a big loss anyway."

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Fast Facts

Name: Sudhir Patel

Age: 36

Occupation:Newsstand manager

Residence: Edison, N. J. Commutes to Penn Station to get to work

Born: Gujarat, India

Family: Married with two sons - Shivam, 10 and Akshay, 9. They are both crazy about basketball, tennis and their father's favorite sport, cricket.

Cricket: As his sons were born in the United States, Patel takes his sons back to Gujarat every two years to understand their Indian heritage. "I hope they will not be ABCDs," he says, laughing. ABCD stands for "American Born Confused Desi," which is a slang term for Indians who were brought up in the United States and may be confused about their heritage.

Likes: Cleanliness in the U.S.

Dislikes: Crime in New York.

Recent worries: For some time Patel was very worried about the earthquake that struck Gujarat on Jan. 26. Luckily, it did not affect his family and friends. He was constantly reading news reports online. According to UNICEF, the Gujarat quake killed at least 30,000 people and left more than a million homeless.

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