Padmavathi Kirana & General Store

Finding us isn’t too hard if you know the Old City area near Charminar. We are right near the Chatriyanaka Police Station and the Chitrapgupta Temple. It’s a very old part of town with narrow lanes and lots of history. Our store, Padmavathi Kirana & General Store, is just a small shop packed with everything you can imagine. We have sacks of rice on the floor and packets of biscuits hanging from the ceiling. It’s always noisy with the traffic and the bells from the temple nearby. We get all sorts of customers, from old grandmothers buying their weekly dal to kids looking for a single piece of candy. It gets very hot in the afternoons, so we have a small fan that doesn't do much. We stay open pretty late because that’s when most people finish their work and come to buy things for dinner. It’s a family-run place, so you’ll usually see one of us sitting behind the counter. We don't have any barcodes or fancy scanners. We just know the prices by heart. Sometimes we run out of something because the delivery truck got stuck in the Charminar traffic. We just tell the customer to come back tomorrow. It’s a bit chaotic with all the people and the small space, but that is just how life is in the heart of the city. We’ve been here for a long time.