Shanthamma Vigetables

Shanthamma has been selling vegetables in Saidabad for quite a while now. The shop is at 17-1-388/P/86, which is inside Purnodaya Colony. It is a quiet residential neighborhood with 500059 as the pincode. Every day starts very early, long before the sun comes up. We have to go and pick out the best gourds, greens, tomatoes, and potatoes from the wholesale market. If you come by in the morning, you will see everything stacked up in crates and on the wooden tables. We spend a lot of time cleaning the dirt off the carrots and bunching the spinach. People from the colony walk over with their cloth bags to pick up what they need for lunch or dinner. It is a simple way of living. We talk about the prices going up and down and how the rain affects the crops. The shop is just a small space, mostly open to the air. Sometimes the cows wander by looking for scraps. It is hard work standing on your feet all day and lifting heavy bags of onions. Shanthamma knows almost everyone's name in this part of Purnodaya Colony. We don't have fancy scanners or carts. Everything is measured on a basic scale. By the end of the day, we are usually tired, but we get ready to do it all over again the next morning and hope the produce stays fresh.