Desi grocery stores in U.S.
Right from childhood in a small hamlet in TN, grocery stores have been places of interest to me :-)
Small little things like the "knife" that the shopkeeper used in my grandparent's suburb of Virudhunagar to cut coconut into "chillu" always fascinated me. (It was a customized tool shaped out of the bicycle's pedal stick).
And their continuous evolution in a small Kerala town Palakkad where they started accepting credit cards in the time frame around 1992. ( I won't forget my first Andhrabank VISA card that had no significant fee, gave a generous limit and didn't demand me to open an account with them etc).
I made it a point to visit only those stores with a credit card sign since then (while in India) as I thought the sale to me had to be accounted properly and no tax cheating happens :-)
Then there were the "margin-free" stores that issued a customer loyalty / membership card (new concept for Kerala) in late 90's that caught the fascination, with terrific speed by the billing girls operating their keyboards :-)
(However, the fastest keyboard girls belonged to the pazhamudhir nilayams of CBE, amazing!)
No wonder, I observe the desi grocery stores in U.S. a little more-than-normal-way and often pick on them...