Reading about the FDI in retail in India makes me wonder if actually the advent of the BIG wigs would wipe the small kirana shops in India. There is a 10ft by 5ft kirana shop (with a big curtain as the backdrop) near our house. The owner looks like # 3 in the 6 stage Darwin evolution theory pictures .
In his tiny shop irrespective of what you ask for he has it all and at all times.
(Not that i have ever asked for firearms to verify the completeness of his stock but i still wonder if there is tunnel connected to a supermarket behind that curtain ).
Irrespective of his looks i know running a store can be hard work, as i discovered on my first visit to "Sukriti" boutique, during a trip to Los Angles . It was delivery day and a large van was parked in front of the shop. The driver was unloading goods from the wholesale warehouse and piling them on the pavement. From here, the boxes and crates had to be carried into the store, unpacked, and their contents put on the shelves. While my cousin did the unpacking and shelving, she had hired a couple of college kids to do the heavy work of lugging the boxes into the shop. To help out, i picked up a bag of tissue and carried it in. Assuming that i too had been employed for the chore, the two kids began to pile more and more of the boxes and crates on me: C'mon, don't be so feeble and carry only two of those, take that third
box as well. Under a triple load of silk, cotton , i staggered into the shop under the direction of kids who had promoted themselves from labor to managerial supervisors: Easy now; put it down gently, don't break anything.I was carrying in my fourth — or it might have been fifth load — when Shilpa spotted me from the rear of the shop and came rushing up. She yelled at the kids. She's not the hired help; she's my sister! You're the hired help, said Shilpa. My self-appointed supervisors mumbled apologies, which i brushed aside. Sukriti was a family enterprise, in which all the family pitched in to help. And as a sister , it wasn't just my job but my pleasure to lend a hand.
Shilpa minded the till and chatted with customers as they came up to pay: How are you today, luv? Got over that nasty cold you had last week, i'm glad to see. And how's your daughter doing at university? Coming down for the holidays, is she then? Good company for you, so nice when the children come home.
This was what Sukriti — and the thousands of such across the country — had to offer which the big supermarket chains didn't: conversation and human contact, no matter how brief. Each customer was a known face, a remembered name. And in an increasingly impersonal society, where anonymity is the norm, this made all the difference.
How do you put a MRP on that.
=)
