Thirumala Kirana Store

If you live around Diesel Colony in Kazipet, you've probably walked past our shop a few times. We're at 12Aa, and it's been our family's spot for quite a while. We sell the usual stuff you'd expect in a kirana store—bags of rice, different dals, soaps, and those little packets of biscuits the kids always want. It’s a small space, so things are stacked pretty high on the shelves. Sometimes it takes us a minute to find exactly what someone is looking for, especially if it's tucked in the back corner. We open early in the morning because that's when people realize they ran out of milk or sugar for their tea. It's a lot of lifting heavy sacks and weighing out items on the scale. The colony is quiet mostly, except when the trains go by or during shift changes at the railway shed. We know most of the faces that come in. We don't have a website or anything like that. People just come in, tell us what they need, and we pack it up. If we don't have something, we try to get it in by the next week. It’s just a simple neighborhood shop. My hands are usually dusty from the flour or the grain bags, but that’s just part of the job. We keep the place running every day because people around here need their groceries and we enjoy being here for them.