Paris General Store

You can find us in the Goel Market area of Hapur. The shop is filled from floor to ceiling with all sorts of things, from bags of lentils to bars of soap and little packets of biscuits. It’s a bit of a squeeze to get through the aisles because we try to keep a lot of stock in a small space. We’ve been serving the local families around here for a long time. People usually come in with a handwritten list and we go around grabbing the items for them. The market gets very crowded on the weekends, so the shop is usually full of noise and people asking for prices. We don't have a fancy checkout counter, just a simple wooden table where we keep the cash box and the weighing scale. Sometimes the cat from next door wanders in and hides behind the flour sacks. It's a regular neighborhood store where you can find almost anything you need for the kitchen or the house. If we don’t have something, we try to get it in by the next time the distributor comes around. The lighting inside isn't the brightest, and the shelves are made of old wood that’s seen better days. But it works fine for us and the customers don't seem to mind the clutter. We just open the shutters in the morning and wait for the regulars to show up for their daily groceries. It is a bit messy sometimes but that is just part of the job.