Pareek Kirana & General Store

You will find us at Shop 114 in the Shastri Nagar Shopping Center. It is an old building and we have been in this same spot for many years. The store is filled with all the daily essentials like flour, rice, and different kinds of pulses. Because the space is small, we have to keep the heavy sacks of grain on the floor near the entrance. It has that familiar smell of a kirana store, a mix of spices and laundry soap. People from the nearby blocks come in with their handwritten lists. We spend our day weighing out sugar or lentils and packing them into small bags. Sometimes the old weighing scale is a bit slow, but we make it work. The shopping center is always buzzing, especially in the mornings when people come out to get their milk and bread. We carry a variety of brands, mostly things we know the local families like. My hands usually have a bit of flour dust on them by the end of the day. There are no fancy lights or decorations here, just the same wooden shelves we have always used. We have a small radio that plays in the background, but mostly we are just talking to the neighbors about how the prices are going up. It is a simple life of running a grocery shop and making sure people have what they need for their dinner.