Laxmi Narsimha Kirana Store

Laxmi Narsimha Kirana Store is tucked away at 3-896-85 in Bala Nagar. It’s the kind of place where you can find almost anything for your daily cooking if you look hard enough among the stacks. We have jars of candies on the front counter and big sacks of lentils sitting on the floor. Most of the neighborhood families come here because we are close by and they can just walk over. The shop isn't very big, so we have to use every inch of wall space for shelving. Sometimes it feels like the boxes are going to reach the ceiling. We open up early in the morning, usually while it’s still a bit dark out, to get the milk packets ready for the early birds. It’s a one-room setup mostly, with a small back area for storage that stays pretty cool. We don't use any fancy computers for our sales, just a notepad and a calculator that has some of the numbers worn off. Sometimes the power goes out in the afternoon, and we just sit by the door where there's a bit of a breeze until it comes back on. It is a quiet life for the most part, except when the school kids come by in the afternoon for biscuits. We know which shelf has the tea and which one has the salt without even looking. It’s just a neighborhood shop doing what it does every day.