Harshitha Kirana & General Store

Harshitha Kirana & General Store sits right at the X-Road on the Main Road in Parasigutta. If you know Hyderabad, you know how busy these intersections can get. There is a constant stream of autos and bikes zooming past our door. I spend most of my day behind the wooden counter, weighing out dal or packing up eggs for the neighbors. We’ve got everything from loose tea leaves to those little packets of shampoo hanging from the ceiling. The 500061 area is full of families who have lived here for generations, so I see the same faces every morning. Some of them have been coming here since they were toddlers, and now they bring their own children to buy biscuits. It’s a lot of responsibility to keep the stock fresh, especially the perishables like bread and milk that arrive on the crates early in the morning. The shop is tucked into a corner, so it stays a bit dark inside, which is actually nice when the Hyderabad sun is beating down outside. I usually have a small radio playing some old songs in the background to keep me company when the afternoon lull hits. Once the sun goes down, the X-Road gets even noisier, and that's when the real rush starts. We keep serving until the very last customer leaves, usually well past eight or nine at night.