Teri Rajput Sweets & Dairy

Over at Teri Rajput Sweets & Dairy on Gorai Road in Koregaon Park, we deal with a lot of fresh milk and sugar every single day. The shop smells like boiling milk and cardamom most of the time. We start very early, often before the sun is even up, because the dairy deliveries arrive at the crack of dawn. Moving those heavy cans around is a workout in itself. We have these glass display cases that we spend a lot of time cleaning because fingerprints show up so easily on them. In Koregaon Park, you get all sorts of people walking in, from students to older folks who have lived here for decades. We try to keep the counters organized, but when the festival season hits, everything goes out the window and it becomes a bit of a madhouse. We have stacks of cardboard boxes ready for packing, and sometimes we run out of string to tie them. It’s just me and a few others working the shifts. We don't have a big corporate office; our office is a small desk in the corner piled with bills and receipts. We make sure the sweets are fresh and the curd is set right. If the batch isn't good, we don't put it out. It is a straightforward way of doing things. We’ve been at this for a while and the routine has become second nature to all of us here.