Shri Pabuji Kirana Store

If you know where Sardar Patel Vidhya Bhavan is in Surat, then you’re pretty close to where we are. Our shop is at 162 in the Bheed Bhanjan Society on Ganga Jamna Road. It’s a busy part of Hira Baug, especially when the school lets out and the kids come running by to see what we have. We sell a lot of snacks and cold drinks during those hours. The rest of the day it’s mostly housewives from the society coming in for their daily kitchen supplies. We keep the pulses and spices in the back and the smaller items up front where we can see them easily. The shop isn’t very large, so things tend to get piled up in the corners sometimes. We spend a lot of time just organizing the jars and checking the dates on the milk packets each morning. It’s a lot of work keeping everything straight and making sure we don't run out of anything important. Sometimes the traffic on the road is so loud we have to ask people to repeat what they want three times. It’s a bit chaotic but it’s just our daily life here. We’ve been part of this street for a long time now. We don't do any big advertising or anything fancy like that. People just know we are here when they need something. It’s a practical kind of place. You come in, get your salt or your tea, and head back home. That’s really all there is to it. We just try to keep the shelves full.