Shri Vishnu Sweet

It is pretty crowded here at Nagarathpet 92. If you know this part of the city, you know how tight the lanes get. We have been in this spot for years, tucked away between the cloth shops and the hardware stores. The morning starts with unloading the milk cans and getting the big iron vats heated up. It gets quite steamy in the back room, especially when the weather is humid. We don't have a lot of space for people to sit and linger, so most folks just grab what they need and keep moving. The counter is usually sticky with syrup no matter how many times we wipe it down during the shift. My brother handles the billing while I stay near the trays. We don't do any big advertising or anything like that. People just know where we are because of the smell of frying dough that drifts down the street. Sometimes the electricity goes out and we have to use flashlights to see what we are doing in the kitchen. It is just a small family thing we have going on here. We see the same delivery guys every day and talk about the local news while we work. By the time we close the shutters at night, our aprons are covered in flour and we're ready to sit down. It is hard work, but it is what we know how to do.