Deepak General Store

Working on Central Jail Road in the Bhojubeer area of Varanasi is interesting because of the mix of people. We are near Sunbeam School, so in the afternoons, the street is full of buses and parents. The shop gets very busy during those hours with kids looking for chips or pens. Most of the time, it’s just me and a helper managing the bags of sugar and the stacks of soap. We’ve been here for a long time, and the building shows its age a little bit, but it’s sturdy. The noise from the road never really stops, but after a few years, you just stop hearing it. Local families come in to chat as much as they do to shop. We don’t have any big marketing plans or shiny displays. Our shelves hold the new stock wherever it fits, and we try to remember where we put the matches or the light bulbs. Sometimes the rain leaks in a little near the front door, so we have to be careful with the cardboard boxes. It’s a simple business. Early mornings start with sweeping the front, and we stay until the last person leaves at night. It’s just how we've always done things here in Bhojubeer, serving the local crowd day in and day out. It's a lot of standing on hard floors, but it's what we do to keep things going for our family and our neighbors.