Mahalakshmi Traders

Our shop is located at 43 1 on Magadi Main Road in the Kamakshi Palya area. It’s right on the stretch where the traffic is always crawling and the horns are loud. We have a lot of stuff piled up inside, mostly basic goods and trading items that people in the neighborhood need. The shelves go all the way up to the ceiling, so we have to use a wooden ladder to reach the things on top. It’s a bit of a squeeze when more than two people are inside at once. We spend our mornings checking the stock and seeing what we need to order for the next week. The ledger we use is getting quite thick with all the entries. Sometimes the pen runs out of ink right when we are in the middle of a sale. We just grab another one from the drawer and keep going. The front of the shop is open to the road, so we get a lot of dust from the buses passing by. We have to wipe down the counters several times a day. We have a small stool behind the counter where we take turns sitting down when there are no customers around. Most people who come in are regulars from the nearby houses. We talk about the weather or the price of things while we pack their items. It’s a simple routine and we’ve gotten used to the noise and the pace of Magadi Road.