Amardeep Kirana Store

Our shop, Amardeep Kirana Store, is right on Kirtikar Market Road L 7 in Surat. It’s a busy area and the shop is usually packed with sacks of grains and big tins of oil. I get here early in the morning to sweep the front and get everything ready for the first customers. People in this part of Surat are very particular about the type of tea or spices they use, so I make sure we have those specific brands on the shelves. The floor stays a bit dusty because of all the people coming and going, but that's just how it is in a market. My brother and I manage the heavy lifting, moving boxes and stacking bags of rice. We’ve known most of the families around here for years. You get to know who wants their pulses in small packets and who buys in bulk. We don't use any fancy computer systems for our accounts, just a thick ledger and a pen. It’s practical work and it keeps us on our feet all day. There is no air conditioning here, just a couple of old fans that rattle a bit. If a bag of sugar rips, we just clean it up and keep moving. Life on this road is noisy with all the rickshaws, but we are used to it by now. We just provide the basic things that every kitchen needs to keep running. It is a regular shop for regular people.