Sai General Store

Our place, Sai General Store, is located right on the Mumbai Highway in Padegaon, Aurangabad. We are quite close to Shivaji Chowk, which is a landmark most people in this area know well. Being on the highway means we see a lot of trucks and cars zooming by, but we mostly serve the families living nearby. The shop is a simple room filled with rows of items that people need for their daily lives. I spend a lot of my time stocking up on things like grains, soaps, and those small packets of snacks that kids like to buy on their way home. It’s not a large supermarket, so you can see everything we have just by standing at the front. The dust from the road is a bit of a constant battle, so I’m often wiping down the jars and the counter to keep things tidy. We open early because that’s when people realize they ran out of something for breakfast. I’ve known many of my customers for years; I’ve seen their kids grow up and start coming to the shop on their own. We don't have a lot of help, so if I'm busy in the back, people just wait a minute or call out. It’s a very relaxed kind of place. We keep a ledger for the regulars and try to keep the prices fair. It’s just a normal shop run by normal people trying to make an honest living here in Padegaon every single day.