King Fruits & Spices

We are up in the hills at Shenbaganur in Kodaikanal. King Fruits & Spices is located in a spot where the mist often rolls in during the afternoons. It is a lot cooler up here than down in the plains, which is good for the produce. We have a small warehouse where we store the fruits and the spices that come from the local farms. The air always smells a bit like damp earth and cloves. We spend our mornings checking the crates of pears or plums, depending on the season. The spices are kept in large jars and bags in the back where it stays dry. It is a quiet place, away from the main tourist parts of Kodaikanal. We do not have many walk-in customers, mostly just people we have worked with for years. The building is made of stone and wood, and it stays quite chilly inside, so we usually wear sweaters even in the summer. We keep our accounts in a simple ledger book and use an old scale for weighing the smaller items. Sometimes the road gets blocked by a small landslide when the rain is heavy, so we have to be careful with our timing. It is a slow pace of life here. We watch the weather change and wait for the trucks to come up the winding roads. It is not a complicated business, just moving things from the trees to the people who want them. We are happy with how things are.