Samar General Store

Samar General Store is located on Sonarpura Road in Varanasi. It’s a simple place we opened to help the people living in this area get their daily supplies without walking too far. We keep a bit of everything, from lentils and spices to cleaning supplies and batteries. The shop is quite narrow, so if two people are inside at once, it feels full. We do our best to keep everything in stock, but sometimes the suppliers don't show up on time. That's just how it goes here. I spend a lot of my time checking the dates on packets and making sure nothing has gone bad. We don't have any assistants, so I do the cleaning and the selling myself. In the afternoons when it’s hot, I turn on the small table fan and listen to the radio. It’s a quiet business mostly, except for the noise from the street. I like talking to the customers who come in to buy milk every morning. We’ve seen the neighborhood change a lot over the years, with new buildings coming up around us. But our store stays pretty much the same. We don't use any big signs or posters. If you need something, you just come in and ask. It's a humble way to earn a living and we're okay with that.