Chilla Kirana Store

We have been running this small shop, Chilla Kirana Store, near the Mayur Vihar Phase 1 metro station for quite some time now. It is just a basic neighborhood store, nothing too fancy. We open up pretty early in the morning because a lot of people heading to the metro stop by for a packet of milk or some biscuits. The road outside gets quite dusty with all the traffic, so we are always dusting off the jars and packets. We stock all the usual stuff like rice, pulses, soaps, and tea. My cousin comes in to help me during the busy evening hours when everyone is coming back from work. We don't have any fancy computer billing system here, just a simple notebook where we keep track of things. Some days it is very quiet and we just sit and watch the cars go by, but other days it gets so crowded that it's hard to move around. The shelves are a bit cramped and sometimes things fall over, but we know where everything is kept. If someone can’t find a specific brand of spice, we just tell them to wait a few days until the next delivery truck comes. It is a bit of a struggle sometimes with the heat and the power cuts, but we manage. We’ve grown to know almost everyone in the area by their first name. It's just a regular life for us here in Mayur Vihar.