Agarwal Bhandar

Agarwal Bhandar is found in Mithiles Bhawan, over in the Goala Toli area of Ratu Road. We are quite close to the Minaxi Cinema Hall, which used to be a big landmark for everyone here in Ranchi. Our store deals in all kinds of grains, pulses, and general grocery items. It’s a traditional bhandar, so we have big containers of loose items that we weigh out for customers. The building itself is an older one, and we’ve been here for many years. You can smell the different spices and flours when you walk inside. It is a bit dark because the shop is deep, but we have enough lights to see what we are doing. We don’t use any fancy computers; we still use the old-style scales for some things and write down the totals on paper scraps. The neighborhood is crowded and the roads are often blocked with rickshaws. We get a lot of people coming in during their evening walks. We aren't trying to be a modern supermarket. We just provide regular staples for people's kitchens. Sometimes we sit on the steps during the quiet afternoon hours when the sun is too bright and the customers are few. It’s a modest business and we take pride in knowing our stock well. If you need a specific kind of dal or a certain brand of oil, we likely have it tucked away somewhere on our shelves. That is just how we run things.