More Than Just a Grocery Shop

By Nabam Rimi

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I have been doing my internship and fieldwork at a Northeast grocery shop in Electronic City for about a week now. It’s around 9 km from where I stay. In Bangalore, 9 km can easily feel like 20. Traffic is unpredictable and so are auto fares. Time or travelling itself feels expensive here. Back home in Arunachal, distance doesn’t feel this heavy. Still, I go every alternate day.

What surprises me is how quickly that shop started feeling comfortable. In this city, I am always a little conscious. The way I look. The way I speak. The questions people might ask. Even small things like walking alone sometimes make me overthink. In fact, I don’t remember myself going out alone for a walk. But inside that shop, I don’t feel watched. I don’t feel like I have to adjust myself.

The brothers who run the place are from Nagaland and Manipur. I’m from Arunachal Pradesh. We don’t share the same language. Our states are different. But that difference doesn’t create distance. If anything, it makes conversations more interesting. We joke about our regional differences. We share stories about home. In our free time, we watch videos from our regional places on YouTube and talk about them. The shop is sometimes filled with songs from Nagaland and Manipur. Sometimes we just sit quietly and scroll through our phones. It feels normal.

Right next to the grocery store, they also run a Northeast restaurant. They cook food from our regions and serve students and working people who miss home. On the days I’m there, they feed me too. I know it’s not easy for them to arrange everything in a city like this. Transporting ingredients from the Northeast is not simple. It takes effort and money, but they still do it. And they don’t make it feel like a big deal when they share food with me. It’s just natural for them.

When there are no customers, we sit together and watch movies or random videos. Those small breaks feel important to me. The shop becomes more than just a workplace. It becomes a space where we don’t have to explain our backgrounds or answer basic questions about where we are from.

I’ve noticed something while observing customers. Many people who walk in are students or workers from different Northeast states. The moment they enter, their body language changes. They speak more freely. They spend time talking, even if they only buy one or two items. Sometimes they come just to ask if a certain product has arrived. Sometimes they stay longer than necessary. It’s not only about shopping. It’s about being somewhere familiar.

For me, travelling that 9 km every alternate day is not always easy. Bangalore drains you in small ways; traffic, expenses, the constant rush. Some days I feel tired before I even leave the house. But once I reach the shop, I feel lighter.

Nobody is forcing me to be there. I am not getting anything extra out of it. But I go because that space feels safe. I don’t have to perform being “adjusted” or “urban.” I can just sit there, talk normally, and exist without feeling different.

In a city where I often feel slightly out of place, that small shop gives me something steady. It reminds me that even far from home, we can build small spaces where we belong.