People and things

For this 21-year-old who works at a grocery store, every day brings with it its share of the mundane, good and unwelcome.

By Anoushka Sawhney

Since September 2019, Mansimran Kaur, also known as Simran, has been bustling between her home, college and shop. Kaur is in her third year of her Bachelor of Physiotherapy degree and works with her father at their grocery shop, Sant Store, in Meerut's Sofipur.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges remain closed. “The shop keeps me busy,” Kaur said, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, while cleaning the shop.

The things are put according to categories nn the shelves. Residents of the area mostly buy their groceries from this shop.

Her day starts with cleaning, arranging and checking the dates of the things at the shop. “If new material comes, then I tally them,” Kaur said.

The shop is open from 8 am to 10 pm. “My whole day goes from going up and down. There is no time to get bored,” Kaur said. Kaur's house is above the shop.

“Generally customers are nice, but at times people cheat,” Kaur said.

“Once an old lady gave me Rs. 50 for a packet of milk. When I gave her the change she said that she gave me Rs. 100.”

In her free time, the 21-year-old listens to music, preferably Punjabi songs and bollywood music, and reads articles related to her profession. Kaur and her family shifted to Modinagar in 2013 from Bareilly and finally to Meerut in 2019.

“When there are many customers, I am a little scared to not commit a calculation mistake. I also have to ensure that no one picks up the items and goes without paying.” (She recalled that this happened and told that during the lockdown.)

At this moment, a truck loaded with plastic-wrapped packs of coke bottles, stopped in front of the shop. Kaur supervised the process and made sure to count and check the manufacturing date of the items that came.

She said that working at the shop has taught her how to “communicate with different people”.

The customers, after all, come in all forms. Kaur said some customers are impatient and want to be addressed first, while some are patient.

There are tricksters too. “When there are many customers, one may try to fool you by telling you that they have already paid even when they have not.”

This, she said, happens when she is alone at the shop.

“But then I boldly ask them to either pay or go back without the items.”

And there are times when customers try to make her complicit in their little lies. “Sometimes parents ask me to tell their kids that we don’t have ice-cream or that the chocolates are spoiled,” she said, laughing.

During the day, when her father sits at the shop, Kaur takes a break and vice-versa.

However, during festivals such as Diwali and Holi, the family puts up a stall outside the shop, which requires the three of them to be present all the time.

Kaur said that people even try to bargain sometimes. “What is there to bargain in groceries?

Nothing gets saved in this work…. Even on milk, we save only Re 1.”

“One thing I have learned from my father is to always be on alert.”

When two sisters came and asked, “Didi, what is the price of these chips?” Kaur politely replied and helped pick a packet.

A daily ritual Kaur performs is to feed the four-five dogs in her locality. She happily described how the dogs come every day in the evening and jump at her, when a customer came.

“I can’t sit for two minutes; someone or the other keeps coming.”