Sri Thirumaal Store

Being at 451, Chidambaram Main Road means we deal with a lot of noise every day. Sri Thirumaal Store is situated right where the traffic picks up in Thirupapuliyur, so there is never a dull moment. You can hear the horns honking from early morning until late at night. The shop isn't very large, so we have to stack things pretty high to make use of the space. If you look up, you’ll see boxes almost touching the ceiling. We try to keep things clean, but the road salt and dust always find a way inside through the cracks. It’s just a part of living and working on a main road like this one. Most of our regulars are folks who live in the back streets behind us. They come in for their daily needs and stay for a bit of gossip about the neighborhood. We don't have a big staff, just a couple of us who take turns behind the counter and moving the stock around. When the weather gets humid, the fans just move the hot air around, but nobody seems to mind much. We’ve got a routine that hasn't changed in many years. We open up, sweep the front, and start checking what needs to be filled back up on the shelves. It’s a plain business without any of those modern gadgets. We use a simple ledger and a calculator that’s missing a couple of buttons. It is enough for what we do here for the community.