Billing for your grocery shop in Nagaland
The rice sack, the packet of salt and the family's month-end ration, written once and found again.
Farming districts whose families come to a grocery counter
Families from farming districts come to a grocery counter for what they do not grow. A few of those districts.
- Mokokchung is known for Ao weaving by women, and for cane and bamboo mats and baskets by men.
- Tuensang farms rice, maize, millet and kholar bean by jhum, and coal, marble and limestone are found there too.
- In Zunheboto, 80% of people depend on farming and allied work, and almost every village home keeps cattle, pigs or fowl.
- Mon grows paddy as its main crop, by terrace and jhum farming.
From a list made on the shelf to a ration page read at the counter
The fortnightly list is split between Dimapur and the Jorhat market
Before the fortnightly trip down, open the items that have fallen below the amount you keep. Split that list in two: what Dimapur will have, and what only the Jorhat market will. A shop in the northern districts plans two markets ahead, so the list for the second market is made before you reach the first.
Kerosene by the litre for the families beyond the road
Families from villages without a gas connection take kerosene by the litre in their own cans. Every litre comes up one road from Assam, so the level of the drum is what you have until the next load. Watch it go down on your phone, not by dipping under the counter.
Axone, bamboo shoot and smoked fish counted on their own
Fermented axone, dried bamboo shoot and smoked fish are what your neighbours cook with every day. Make each its own item with its count, and the report shows which of them sells most, so the jar is never empty on a Saturday, when every house cooks for Sunday.
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Tools for a Nagaland grocery shop that orders by phone and sells by the sack
Orders to suppliers
The phone order to the wholesaler, saved, with each item ticked when it arrives, so a missing bag of salt is seen the same day.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the axone jars and dried fish fall low before Saturday, when every house cooks for Sunday.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the household whose child runs to the shop all day, so a dozen small visits end in one place and not in a pocket.
Godown stock
The back room's count of rice bags kept separate from the few on the shelf.
Bills on your phone
A bill for the ration list a soldier's family sends from the camp, each line in its own unit.
The order list that lives in your head, and the coins that never reach the notebook
The phone order and the night truck: nobody can say what was said or what came
Most grocery shops here order from a wholesaler by phone, a long list said in one minute. The goods come up from Dimapur on a night truck, the boy unloads after the shutter is down, and sacks and cartons go wherever there is room. In the morning a bag of salt is missing, and nobody can say whether it was said, heard or left at the depot.
Every packet and every litre of kerosene comes up one road from Assam
Packaged goods and fuel reach Nagaland by road from Assam, and Dimapur is the link. A packet of tea or a drum of kerosene on your shelf has come a long way on one road, and when the road stops, what is on your shelf is all there is.
The small sales that never reach the notebook
All day a child comes for a sweet, a neighbour for a match box and a packet of salt, a cousin for two eggs. Each is too small to write, so each is only a coin in the cash box. At night the cash is higher than the notebook, and you cannot say which things went out for it, so the next order has no news of them.
Women's groups whose fair and market sales went on to one phone
Questions Nagaland grocery shops ask
Can I keep the axone made in my village apart from the axone that comes from Dimapur?
Yes, as two items. The village axone is made at home in small lots, the Dimapur axone comes in larger lots, and each keeps its own rate and count.
Hill families count rice by the tin. How do I tell them the kilos in a tin?
Weigh one tin of rice once and write its kilos in the item's name, such as rice, one tin. The bill then reads three tins to the family, and you know the kilos behind them for your own stock.
In the jhum harvest weeks farming families buy salt, oil and kerosene, and in the lean weeks they buy less. Can I see the difference?
Open the harvest weeks and the lean weeks before them in the report, and read the rows of salt, oil and kerosene side by side. You see which of the three the harvest money goes to first.
Dimapur and the Jorhat market: how goods reach a Nagaland shelf
A 2011 statement by the Mokokchung Chamber of Commerce says Dimapur is Nagaland's only business hub, and that essential goods reach the northern districts from there.
The same 2011 chamber statement calls the Jorhat market in Assam the base market for the whole of Nagaland. Read with the first fact, it means a northern shop's order may pass through two markets before it reaches the shelf.