Shyan Store

If you walk down the lanes in Garia Fartabad, you will find Shyan Store right there at number one. We are in a corner of Kolkata that feels very much like a community. Our shop is quite small, but we managed to fit a lot of stuff onto the shelves. We sell everything from notebooks for the school kids to light bulbs and laundry detergent. Kolkata can be very humid, so we usually have a small table fan blowing right on us while we wait for customers. We do not have a big team or anything, just a couple of us who take turns looking after the counter. We get a lot of people stopping by just to ask for directions or to buy a single cigarette or a matchbox. The shelves are a bit crowded and sometimes you have to move one thing to find another, but we know exactly where everything is kept. During the rainy season, we have to be careful about the dampness getting to the cardboard boxes, so we keep things off the floor. It is a quiet life most of the time, just watching the people of Garia go about their business. We do not do any advertising or anything like that because everyone around here already knows we are here if they run out of sugar or tea in the middle of the day.