Manoj Sweets Namkeen

Gumanpura is a busy place and we have been sitting here at this spot for a long time. It is just a regular shop where we make sweets and different kinds of namkeen every day. The morning starts with lighting the big stoves and getting the milk delivered. It gets quite hot inside, especially during the summer months when the sun hits the front of the shop. We don’t have any fancy air conditioning, just a couple of ceiling fans that have been spinning for years. The glass counters are filled with whatever we made that morning. Sometimes the barfi isn't perfectly square because we were in a hurry, but people don't seem to mind much. We know most of the people who walk in by their names or at least their faces. It is a lot of standing around and weighing bags of sev or moong dal. The floor gets a bit sticky from the sugar syrup, so we have to wash it down every evening before closing up. There is always noise from the scooters and cars outside on the main road. It can be exhausting when the festival season comes around and everyone wants something at the same time. We just do the work and try to get home for dinner. There is nothing very special about how we do things, we just keep the same routine day after day. Sometimes we run out of the popular snacks by four in the afternoon.