Mahajan Provision Stores

Our shop is over at New Tharagpet, at 16/1. If you've ever been to Tharagpet, you know it's a place that’s always moving, with trucks coming in and people carrying sacks of grain all over the place. We are a provision store, so we deal with the basic stuff people need for their kitchens—grains, spices, oils, and all that. It’s a very traditional kind of business. The shop smells like a mix of cumin, turmeric, and jute bags. We don't have a lot of space for customers to walk around; most of the room is taken up by the stock. People come here to buy in bulk or just get their monthly supply of staples. It’s a lot of physical work, lifting heavy bags and making sure the weights are accurate on the scale. We’ve been here long enough that we have seen the market change quite a bit, but the core of what we do stays the same. People need to eat, and they want decent quality grains at a fair price. We don’t do any fancy packaging. Most things are sold loose or in simple bags. It's a busy, dusty environment, and by the end of the day, we are usually quite tired. But it’s a good community to be part of. We talk to the other shopkeepers and the laborers who help us move the stock. It’s just an honest day's work in a very old part of the city.