Akshitha Kiranam

We run a small kiranam shop at H.No-2-68 in Ananthasagar, over in the Hasanparthy area of Warangal. Our shop is just a basic neighborhood store where people come to buy their daily essentials like rice, sugar, and soap. We open up early in the morning because that is when people realize they’ve run out of milk or tea leaves. The shop is quite small, so every inch of shelf space is used up. We have sacks of grain sitting on the floor and packets of snacks hanging from the ceiling. It’s a very local way of doing things. We know almost everyone who walks through the door by their first name. We’ve seen their kids grow up and now those kids come in to buy sweets. It’s a quiet life in Ananthasagar, though we stay busy enough throughout the day. In the middle of the afternoon, it gets very quiet and I usually sit outside on a wooden bench to catch a bit of a breeze. We don’t use any fancy computers or barcode scanners here. Everything is done by hand in a big ledger book. Sometimes we run out of something and have to wait for the distributor to come by on his scooter the next day. It’s just a normal, everyday shop serving the people who live nearby. We’ve been here for years and the shop has become a bit of a landmark for the neighbors.