Manish Kirana & General Store

Manish Kirana & General Store is right here in the Housing Board area of Kamla Nehru Nagar. I open the shutters pretty early every day because people need their milk and bread before they go to work. It’s a small place, mostly filled with bags of flour and sugar and those small packets of biscuits kids like. The address is number 3 and 4, which is easy to find if you know the neighborhood. Sometimes the fans make a bit of noise but we keep them running because it gets hot inside. Most of our customers are just neighbors who have lived here for years. They come in and talk about the weather or how the road outside needs fixing. We spend a lot of time checking the stock and writing down what we need to get from the main market later. It’s not a fancy shop with bright lights or anything like that. Just wooden shelves and glass jars for the loose sweets. The floor is concrete and I sweep it twice a day because dust comes in from the street quite a bit. If you walk past the park, you’ll see our sign. I’ve been here for a long time now and seen the kids grow up. My hands are usually a bit dusty from handling the grain bags. That’s just how it is here. We don't have a big team, just a couple of us making sure everything is in its place.