Neeta Stores

If you walk toward Hirabaug Circle in Vile Parle West, you’ll find us at Shop No 5 in the Om Satyadeep Societ. It’s a typical small shop where the shelves are packed from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. We try to keep everything organized, but sometimes a box of biscuits or a stack of soap gets moved around. People from the society upstairs come down in their slippers to grab something they forgot for dinner. It’s a lot of small talk about the weather or how the local train was late again. We don’t use a computer for everything; there’s still a thick notebook where we jot things down. The space is a bit tight, especially when two or three people are inside at once trying to look at the snacks. We keep the front open so we can see what’s happening on the street. It gets dusty, but that’s part of being near a busy circle. There is no big staff here, just a couple of us who know where every single item is hidden. Sometimes we run out of things and have to tell people to come back tomorrow after the delivery arrives. It’s a quiet kind of work that doesn’t change much. We like the rhythm of the day and knowing the faces of everyone who walks through the door.