Swastic General Store

If you walk down Thakurbari Road in Patna, you will find Swastic General Store right in the middle of the busy Thakurbari Bazar. It’s a noisy area, full of people and rickshaws, but that’s the charm of old Patna. We’ve been here for a while now, squeezed between other small shops. The space inside is quite narrow, so we have to stack things high up on the shelves. Sometimes you have to ask us where something is because it’s hidden behind a box of biscuits or a pile of detergent packets. We deal in all sorts of general items. Whether you need a new lightbulb or some spices for dinner, we probably have it somewhere in here. Dealing with the crowd every day can be exhausting, but it’s also interesting to see so many different people. We don’t have a big team, just a couple of us working through the day. We aren't trying to be a supermarket. We are just a local shop where you can get your stuff quickly and go. Sometimes the billing takes a bit longer if we are having a chat with a regular customer, but nobody seems to mind much. The bazaar life is fast, but we have our own rhythm. We just try to keep the shop stocked and help out the people who live in the narrow lanes around here.