Madan Lal Surinder Kumar Karyana Store

Madan Lal Surinder Kumar Karyana Store is located inside the busy Ram Bazar in Amritsar, specifically in Gali No 3. The shop is named after my father and uncle who started the business together. We are primarily a karyana store, so our main trade is in bulk groceries. You’ll find large sacks of wheat, different varieties of rice, and heavy bags of pulses piled up on the floor. It’s a bit of a workout moving those sacks around every day. The air inside the shop always smells like a mix of grains and jute. Because we are inside a narrow gali, we don't get much natural light, so we keep several tube lights on all day to see what we are doing. We have a heavy wooden counter where we weigh the items and do all our bookkeeping. There’s a lot of writing to do, keeping track of what comes in and what goes out to the local houses. Ram Bazar is a chaotic place with a lot of traders, so there’s always someone shouting or a cart being pushed past the door. We aren't looking to expand or become a big company; we just want to keep providing standard quality grains to the people who have been buying from us for decades. It’s a lot of physical labor and long hours, but it’s the way we’ve always done it.