“Hold out your hand,” says A. Rajendran. A trifle bemused, I comply—wondering if he is planning to read my palm or perhaps decorate it with mehendi (astrologists and henna artists are a familiar enough sight at Mint Street, Sowcarpet). He dips a long spoon into a large aluminium container and plonks something on my hand. I look down in dismay — a large, lardy lump of home-made butter (and a zillion calories of pure saturated fat) melts on my palm. “Eat, eat,” he says. I gingerly try it; the warm, slightly salty butter is fresh and delicious. “We have been selling butter and ghee here for almost 70 years now. Most of our customers are North Indians,” he says.
Mint Street, Sowcarpet, which stretches from Park Town near the Central Station to Washermanpet, is home to a sizable community of North Indians from Gujarat and Rajasthan, who have been a part of the city for decades now. The narrow streets are slushy with the recent rains, but the colour and life that flourish here make up for it.
Raksha Bandhan is being celebrated at every corner and women in sequined sarees, heads covered with their pallavs throng the temporary stalls to pick up rakhis for their brothers. “We have been selling rakhis at this spot for 40 years now,” says Harish Jain from Rajasthan who also is the proprietor of a store further down the road that deals in apparel specifically used at Marwari weddings. But the festival doesn’t just entail the tying of the sacred thread. It also involves the sister saying a prayer and applying a tilak on her brother, followed by her feeding him with ghevar and getting money and good wishes in return.
At Kamal Chat, a stone’s throw away from the rakhi shop, you can pick up your ghevar . Laced with sugar syrup and rabri, it is delicious. “We are originally from Rajasthan but my grandfather came to Madras almost 60 years ago,” says the owner Vimal Prohit. “This was originally a paan shop but we now sell chaat,” he says. “We have lassi, bhel-puri, pav bhaji, badaam milk,” he says, his voice trailing off when with a sudden sizzle, a batch of jalebis are dunked into a pan of hot oil. “Try them,” he offers. I bite into one, encountering a miasma of warm, gooey syrupiness that lingers on my tongue long after I finished it.
On a happy high (sugar does that to me), I bound out of the store, only to be almost run over by a cantankerous old cycle rickshaw, bearing a corpulent, middle-aged lady and her five shopping bags. Though said to be the second longest street, it is definitely not very wide and you need to negotiate your way through it carefully, without getting distracted. And that’s hard, because of the goodies displayed at almost every nook and corner. The variety here will give most malls a run for their money, not surprising perhaps in an area that gleans its name from the Hindi term sahukar , which means trader.
Packets of deep fried farsaan — ghatiya, theplas, khakras, shev, bhakarwadis. Heart attacks waiting to happen but oh-so-delicious. Tall tumblers of lassi and buttermilk. Translucent pethas with their hard crust and soft core. Ream after ream of decorative lace, fancy buttons and embroidered patches. Slippers and bindis and bangles. Embroidered sarees in chiffon, georgette, lace and net are draped around absurdly skinny mannequins. Gold, silver and gemstones. And if you are broke (like me), you can still pick up relatively inexpensive but still attractive jewellery made of copper and coated with gold (I did).
“I’m very busy now,” says Mahesh Singh, who retails what he calls fashion-jewellery . When I pick up a pair of earrings, however, he mellows down and agrees to talk, “I’m from Rajasthan — I’ve been here for only three years now but I like Chennai, especially the food,” he says.
Not everyone does. Kishore Singh who has lived here all his life and owns a saree store is a little upset. “We are from Rajasthan and I go there once a year to meet my extended family,” he says. “I like it better there — the roads aren’t so messy,” he says.
But messy or not, everyone is out there, having a good time, “It is one of the oldest areas of Chennai,” says Rajendran, as he puts me into an auto and waves good bye. “Do you know that it is called Mint Street because the British used to make their coins here? No wonder, so many people come here to make and spend their money.”
