Venkata Raja Kirana Store

Our little shop, Venkata Raja Kirana Store, is tucked away in Janata Bazar over in Narsipatnam. The address is 6-90-8451, right in the heart of the market area where everything is always moving and shaking. It is a noisy, lively place to work every single day. We sell the usual kirana items like rice, oil, and various spices that people use in their cooking. The shop is small, so we have to stack the bags of grain pretty high to make room for everything on the floor. Sometimes it feels like a puzzle trying to find a specific item for a customer, but we usually know where everything is kept. The roof leaks a tiny bit when it rains really hard, so we have to be careful with the stock then and cover things with plastic. We open up early in the morning when the market starts to wake up. It’s a lot of heavy lifting, moving sacks around and weighing out portions for people who only want a little bit. We don't use any high-tech systems, just a simple scale and a notebook to keep track of what we sell. People come to us because we are right there in the bazar and they know we have what they need for dinner. It is an honest way to make a living, and we enjoy chatting with the other shopkeepers nearby while we wait for the next person to walk in. We just stay busy and keep the shelves as full as possible. It is hard work but we are used to it by now.