Ganesh Misthan Bhandar

Living and working on Sojat Road means you get used to the sound of trucks passing by at all hours. We open up the shutters at Ganesh Misthan Bhandar while the air is still a little cool, but it doesn't stay that way for long once the milk starts boiling. There’s always a big iron pot going in the back. We spend a lot of time just watching the milk thicken up. The shelves are filled with trays of whatever we finished making that morning. Some days it’s more busy than others, especially when there’s a festival coming up or a wedding in the village. We don’t have a big staff, just a few of us doing the same routine every single day. The floor is made of old stone and it’s seen a lot of spills over the years. You can smell the sugar and the cardamom from the street, which I guess is what brings people in. We don't really do any advertising or anything like that. People just know we are here on the road. Sometimes the power goes out and we have to use flashlights to see what we’re doing in the kitchen. It’s a lot of manual work, lifting heavy bags of sugar and stirring the pots until your arms ache. By the time we close up, we're usually pretty tired and covered in flour, but we have to sweep everything before we leave.