Aslam Khan General Store

My shop is located in the middle of the Daily Market at Nehru Chowk in the Chawani area of Aurangabad. It’s Shop No 30, and it’s been in my family for a while. Being in a daily market means it is always loud and crowded with people buying vegetables and other stuff. We sell all the general items you’d expect—cooking oil, flour, spices, and soaps. It’s a lot of heavy lifting, moving sacks of grain around in a small space. The shop is narrow, so we have things stacked high up to the ceiling. You have to be careful when pulling something down from the top shelf. I spend most of my time talking to customers and weighing out portions. We don’t have any fancy signs, just a board with the name. People know us because we’ve been at this spot for so long. The market has its own rhythm, starting very early and ending late. In the afternoons, when it's hot, things slow down a bit and I can sit on my stool for a rest. We keep everything from small packets of biscuits to large tins of ghee. It’s a simple business. I don’t use any computers, just the old-fashioned way of keeping accounts in a ledger book. My neighbors in the other shops are like friends. We watch each other’s stalls if someone has to step away. It’s a hard-working life here in Aurangabad.