Priyanka Namkeen

You can find us in Palanpur Nd, right near the Rajabai Timber Mart at shop number 30. We’ve been making and selling namkeen here for quite a while now. The smell of frying snacks usually hits you before you even see the shop. It’s a small place, and most of the space is taken up by big containers filled with different kinds of sev, gathiya, and other salty snacks. We don’t do much advertising; people just know where we are because of the timber mart nearby. It’s a busy corner with lots of trucks coming and going, so it gets a bit dusty outside. Inside, we just focus on making the snacks. We use simple recipes that we’ve used for years. It’s not a fancy boutique or anything like that. It’s just a snack shop where people come to buy stuff by the kilo for their homes or just a small packet to eat while they walk. Sometimes we run out of the popular items by the afternoon, so we have to start a new batch quickly. The heat from the stoves can be a lot in the summer, but we are used to it by now. We are just local people making food for other local people. It’s a simple life. We keep the floors swept and the containers full. That’s about all there is to it. We take a break in the middle of the afternoon when it's too hot to fry.