Mittal Provisional Stores

If you walk down Gurdwara Road in SGM Nagar and look for Plot No 300 in C Block, you will find Mittal Provisional Stores. It’s not a big supermarket, just a regular place where we keep the essentials. I spend a lot of my time weighing out flour and lentils into plastic bags. The shelves are crowded with soaps, biscuits, and jars of pickles that have been sitting there for a bit. There is a faint smell of spices and old wood in the air. I know most of the people who come in because they live just a few houses away. They come for a loaf of bread or some sugar and stay to talk about the weather or the price of onions. I have a small stool behind the counter that creaks every time I sit down. The lighting isn't very bright and one of the bulbs flickers sometimes, but I haven't bothered to change it yet. It gets busy in the mornings when everyone wants milk and then it gets quiet in the afternoon when it’s too hot to be outside. I use a pencil to mark down what people owe me in a thick register with a tattered cover. My hands always feel a bit dusty from the grain sacks. It’s a quiet life here on Gurdwara Road and I’ve seen the kids in the neighborhood grow up while I stood behind this same counter.