I hail from a small city Patna in Bihar state of India which is not so progressive as compared to other cities of India despite it being a state capital. I’ve been away from home since childhood mainly because of my studies. So, because of that, I had an opportunity to learn about infrastructure, culture, food etc of several places.
During one of my visits to my hometown around 2.5 years back, I went to a general store where I used to go with my mother when I was young and was studying in Patna itself. Quick fact: supermarkets weren’t there in those times and people used to go to general stores to get anything to everything. So, memories flashed in front of my eyes when I visited that shop and was amused to find that shop still operated. I had a small talk with the shopkeeper and was fairly shocked that he recognized me.
While having a talk with him, he was very disturbed to see his sales dipping in the times of supermarkets and online grocery delivery companies ruling the business. Nowadays, everyone wants to shop once for a month either by visiting a supermarket or by ordering groceries online. In this regards, I really couldn’t be of any help to him but I did tell him about Google Maps.
I added his shop on the Google Maps and told him that nowadays people search for places on Google / Google Maps which will make your shop visible. I showcased some of the places, translated the reviews from English to Hindi (local language) and the shopkeeper uncle was amused to see how cool is that without any advertisement. When I was leaving his shop, he was really thankful to me and his watery eyes said everything he wanted to express.
From that moment, I really don’t know how well he’s doing but things like these, make your day and make you believe in humanity. Peace.