Savitri General Store

Savitri General Store is over in Bairhana at 124B Old Laskar Line. Allahabad is an old city, and this neighborhood feels like it. The streets are narrow and wind around quite a bit. Our store is a modest place with a heavy wooden door and a concrete step at the front where people often sit to chat. We don’t have much in the way of decoration. The walls are mostly covered by shelves filled with jars of pickles, packets of tea, and basic medicines like aspirin. There’s a particular smell of incense and dried tobacco that lingers in the air. I’ve lived in this area my whole life, and the store has been here for a good chunk of it. We get the old-timers who come in for their daily newspaper and a bit of gossip, along with mothers looking for sugar or oil for dinner. The lighting inside is quite soft, coming from a couple of old tubes that buzz. When the monsoon hits, the water sometimes splashes up onto the doorstep, and we have to move the grain bags further back. It’s a quiet existence for the most part. We don’t use any computers; everything is done by hand in a big red ledger book. I spend my days filling paper cones with spices or counting out eggs. It’s just a neighborhood shop where people can find the small things they need without any fuss.