Pratap General Store

Pratap General Store is located over in Adarsh Nagar, right along Nasirabad Road. If you live around here, you’ve probably walked past us a dozen times. The shop is small but we pack a lot into the shelves. It gets a bit crowded when more than three people come in at once, but we manage. I spend a lot of time checking the expiry dates on the milk and curd every morning. It's a lot of work keeping track of everything from detergent to tea leaves. The wooden counter has seen better days, the corners are all worn down from people leaning on them while they count out their change. We don't have a computer system, just a thick notebook where I write things down when someone asks to pay later. The traffic on Nasirabad Road never really stops, so there is always a background hum of engines while we work. It’s mostly just me and occasionally my brother helping out during the evening rush. We try to keep the staples in stock, like sugar and flour, because that's what everyone asks for. Sometimes the electricity goes out and we have to use a torch to find the matchboxes. It’s just how things go in a neighborhood shop like this. We’ve known some of these customers since they were small children, and now they bring their own kids here. The ceiling is a bit low, so it gets warm in the summer months even with the door wide open. I keep a small radio on the shelf to listen to the news in the afternoon.