The Hosahalli Roadside Shop

Standing outside the shop, looking down the road leading to VTCL

Except for a couple of kiosks between the two school campuses, there aren’t any shops right by the school. In fact, the school is around 3.5km away from the nearest village which has commercial life. There is however a ‘larger’ shop up by the main road and a couple of small kiosks (and drinking shacks further down the road), only one kilometer away. Once I found out that they stock bottled water, sodas and bananas, I started coming there quite often. I used to walk up to the store with Abhishek or Abbie & Karen to buy bananas and water, but they ran out of both for a while. During my last week at Hosahalli I would walk up to the shop on my own almost daily, and purchase water and some puri snacks to eat before dinner. I’d first sit outside the shop for a relaxed half hour, drinking soda and talking to the various school children that would walk by on their way home. It was especially fun taking pictures of the kids; they loved seeing the pictures on my camera afterwards. That’s one of my little rituals I’ll miss about Hosahalli.