Sundhesvri Kirana

Out here in Lakhani, things move a little slower than in the big cities. Our store is located right near the Lakhani Gram Panchayat office, which makes it easy for folks coming in from the surrounding farms to find us. Being in Banaskantha district, we get a lot of dust, especially when the wind picks up in the afternoon. We mostly sell the basic things that every household needs, like oil, tea leaves, and spices. The building is simple, just four walls and a lot of shelves that I built myself a few years back. I usually open the shutters early in the morning before the heat gets too bad. You can hear the goats and the tractors passing by on the main road all day long. Sometimes we run out of something because the supply truck got delayed, but people around here are patient. We keep a ledger for the locals who pay at the end of the month. It's a lot of manual work, lifting heavy bags of grain and stacking crates of glass soda bottles in the corner. My kids sometimes help out after school, though they mostly just want to eat the snacks. We don't have any bright lights or big advertisements. It’s just Sundhesvri Kirana, a place where you can get what you need and hear the latest news from the village council. It’s been our life for a long time now and we like the routine. We just keep the doors open and wait for the neighbors to stop by.