Vaishali Provision Stores

If you walk through Mukund Nagar in Chandigarh, you’ll find us at sector 21. It’s a standard provision store, nothing too special to look at from the outside. We’ve got the big sacks of rice and flour sitting on the floor and the shelves are packed with biscuits, soaps, and dals. Every morning starts with the milk delivery. The crates get dropped off early and we have to get them inside before the sun starts getting too strong. It’s a lot of heavy lifting and moving boxes around. People from the nearby houses come in for their daily needs, usually just a few items at a time. We know most of the faces by now since they’ve been coming here for years. The floor is a bit worn out from all the walking, and there’s always a faint smell of spices in the air. We don’t have much space to move around once two or three customers are inside. Sometimes the kids come in after school for some candy or a cold drink. We keep a small notebook for the regular accounts, writing down what people owe until the end of the month. It’s just how things work here. Chandigarh 21 is a quiet enough area, and we just keep the shop running from morning till late evening, making sure the shelves stay full. We don't use a computer for the billing, just a simple pad and pen. It's easier that way for us to manage things.