Rahul Kumar

The store is located in the New Lic Colony area of Shivpuri in Patna, specifically over by Boring Road. It is a busy part of town, so there is always someone passing by. This isn't a large supermarket or anything, just a personal shop run with a few hands. We have the usual stock like cigarettes, matchboxes, bundles of incense, and basic groceries. The counter is covered in a scratched piece of laminate where we count out coins. Sometimes the delivery trucks block the narrow road outside, and there is a lot of shouting and honking for a few minutes. We have a small television in the corner that usually plays the news at a low volume. The walls have a few old calendars hanging on them from years past. It gets dusty fast because of the construction nearby, so we are always wiping down the biscuit packets. We don't have fancy uniforms or a polished way of speaking. If someone asks for something we don't have, we just tell them to check back in two days when the new stock arrives. Life on Boring Road moves fast, but inside the shop, things feel a bit slower. We spend a lot of time just organizing the small sachets of shampoo and hanging them from the ceiling hooks. It is a basic setup meant for the people living in the colony who just need to grab something quick on their way home from work.