Suresh Kirana Stores

We are located at Katargam 3, right in the middle of a very busy street. This store has been my life for a long time. It’s filled with the smell of spices, pulses, and whatever else we have in the open sacks near the entrance. I spend my day weighing out items on the scale and tying them up in small plastic bags. It’s old-fashioned, but it works for the people who live around here. We don’t have those fancy scanners or shopping carts you see in the big malls. People just tell me what they need, and I go get it from the shelves or the back room. Sometimes it’s just a single packet of biscuits, and other times it’s a whole month’s worth of groceries for a big family. The ceiling is high, but we use every inch of the walls for storage. It’s a bit dark inside during the afternoon, but it keeps the place cool when the sun is out. My son helps me with the heavy lifting because the sacks of rice are getting harder for me to move these days. We see the same faces every morning, mostly the ladies from the nearby flats doing their daily shopping. We talk about the weather or how expensive everything is getting. It’s just a simple life of selling things people need. When the shutters go down, I’m usually pretty tired.