Om General Store

The railway crossing near Nishatganj Market is always a busy spot, and that is exactly where Om General Store is located. You can hear the trains passing by all day long while we are working. It’s a noisy place but you get used to it after a while. We keep all the standard items like cleaning supplies, snacks, and basic toiletries. The market is usually packed with people, especially in the evenings when everyone is heading home from work. Our shop isn't very big, so we have to use every bit of wall space to hang packets of chips and shampoos. It gets a bit chaotic when four or five people come in at once asking for different things. I usually have a nephew or a cousin helping me out because it’s hard to manage everything alone. Lucknow summers are tough, and the shop can get quite hot being so close to the road. We don't have fancy air conditioning, just a ceiling fan that works hard. We’ve seen the crossing gates open and close thousands of times from this storefront. It is just a basic shop for the people who live around here or those passing through the market. We don't try to be anything else. We just open up, sell what we have, and go home to our families at the end of the day.