My favourite grocery shop is a basement shop operating at the end of a flight of steps. At Christmas, they put in a lot of effort into decorating the shop, lining the barristers with pine branches and tinsel. There was a gorgeous Christmas tree next to the payment counter. And, as to be expected, they played low volume carols as the lights were dimmed in the café section of the shop. It is a café-cum-grocery shop. The best part of this shop is that one does not have to cross the crazily busy street. It is very much a neighbourhood shop, and the owner has time for a friendly chat. In earlier days, it was a hotel establishment with a restaurant serving quite authentic Indian food. The hotel was dismantled and has since then been recast into the present basement shop. Butter, coffee, tea, milk, dal, ghee, baking powder, and many other essentials are available. No sugar though, nor bread, an essential many families are addicted to. Washing powder, kitchen towels, toilet paper, and toiletries and little gifts for children. Actually, there are a lot more items in the shop. However, you may still have to cross the street to buy atta-maida, rice and fresh green vegetables. But the point is, the neighbourhood basement shop is worth supporting and worth shopping at. Negativity in some people will only focus on the items they do not stock, and use that as an excuse not to shop there. But this is how we contribute to the fall of colony shops and local entrepreneurship.
There is such a need to remember they are only just beginning-, they have a long way to go. But they cannot get there without our support and our encouragement. If we want local entrepreneurs to thrive, we have to do our part to buy from them, and vocalise the fact that they are offering a very welcome service to the colony. For it is a blessing indeed that we don’t have to walk further to shop household items. The parking space outside the shop is almost nil. But that is not an issue. With a neighbourhood shop, we can walk briskly to the shop, get our supplies and walk back home. Not every shopping trip has to be done by car.
I want local entrepreneurs to succeed. Because their enterprises do their part towards helping the economy and alleviating unemployment. The number of young people looking for jobs is not funny.
Local businesses can offer some employment with their need for shop assistants. One thing about the older establishments that have been around for a longer time is that they never reply in the negative. For example, if you ask for an item, and they do not have it, they will still say they have it, and would you please wait for two minutes while they retrieve it. In a little more than two minutes time, they return with the item you need. How do they do it when it is so obvious they never had stocks of the said item? Well, they sent a spindly assistant across the street to buy or borrow the item from a brother shop and sprint back with it. It is the Yes and Can attitude that marks some people out for success and growth. Never saying no is a good motto for a shopkeeper. Instead, say that you can get it in a few minutes if madam can please wait for just a few minutes. Good shopkeepers also nurture good relations with other shops in the neighbourhoods. Instead of treating them as competition, they foster the spirit of progressing together. They will tell you that they do not have what you have asked for but that such-and-such a shop has it, the exact item that you need. Competition is not always healthy. Cooperating is a better alternative to competition. It changes the environment altogether. In the end, we know who is going to endure to the end.
Back to the neighbourhood basement shop, I admire their attitude. They often tell customers they can submit a list of the items they would like them to stock and they will oblige. I never got around to making a list, but the fact that they would offer it is pretty awesome, very worth mention.
