E i! Po po ,” the policewoman glares at the hawker. She snarls: “po-nnu solrenla — I’m asking you to leave.” Caught midway between a sale, the hawker looks at her customer in desperation — the customer is selecting a comb from her collection. When the suburban train halts at Ambattur station, she tears herself away and hops out. “I wish they showed us some mercy,” she sighs, as the train chug-chugs into the mild afternoon sun. Her name is Jayamalini. Being kicked out of ladies compartments is all in a day’s work for her. “Now, we’ll just wait till another vandi arrives,” she smiles.
The station is deserted; the stone benches are empty. Yet, Jayamalini refuses to sit or put down her four basketfuls of hairclips, rubber-bands, combs and earrings. “I’m used to carrying it,” she says. The 30-something is from the Narikuravar community and has been selling trinkets on suburban trains for as long as she can remember. “When I got married, my parents told me a woman cannot be lazy and sit at home if she wants to give her family a comfortable life. She has to work hard. And if her husband drinks, she has to work harder. I think of this everyday when I come to work,” she says.
Jayamalini’s day begins at 5 a.m. She boards a train from Arakkonam with her ware, works the suburban trains all day and catches the Lalbagh Express at 3.30 p.m. back home. She lives in Banavaram in a house the Government has granted her community. “Once I go back, I have to make dinner for my two sons and two daughters. It’s rice and sambhar tonight,” she adds.
A goods train trundles past us when Jayamalini shows a photo of a young girl with a powdered face in salwar kameez, her dupatta pinned to her shoulder. “She’s Sarasa, my older daughter. She too was working like me till a customer told her....”
Just then the sound of a train whistle hits us from far away and Jayamalini instantly walks closer to the platform. Suddenly, nothing else matters to her but the ladies’ coupe in front of her. She shakes off the platform and the rest it offered to her tired legs and squeezes her way into the crowded compartment of the train that pulls over.
“ Akka mupadhu ruva clip iruvadhu ruva ka...paavada naada ka... — A Rs. 30-clip is now Rs. 20. Skirt strings, sister?” she repeats the lines in a sing-song voice, her eyes quick to catch a potential customer’s slightest glance in her direction. Once she gets a lady’s attention, she will get down to work with gusto — her voice will grow louder and she will not leave unless the customer is tempted to take a look at her glistening basket. In the five minutes before the next station arrives, Jayamalini sells a skirt string for Rs. 20 and hops off at Korattur.
“I’ve made Rs. 300 since morning,” she informs us. “I’d gone to Parry’s to buy goods to sell... I was talking about my daughter, no? Sarasa is beautiful. She dresses in salwars and places a small bindi on her forehead. One day, a customer in a train asked her why she didn’t go to school or college. It hurt her. From then on, Sarasa refused to work,” says Jayamalini.
She sits on a bench this time, her eyes bright. “I’ve arranged for her marriage. It’s happening 11 days from today at home. The mappilai is from our community; he too sells beads. We generally work together, but today, he left early to paint his home for the wedding,” she smiles.
“There’s so much work to do. We’re printing invitations, calling a lot of relatives...there will be a feast of rice, sambar, rasam, and poriyal. The couple will get a lot of moi (gift money) that they can use. Sarasa will start working with her husband once she’s married.” Jayamalini has tattooed the names of three men on her arms. Her husband Ravi’s, her brother’s, and….time to go, another train arrives.
We hop off at Perambur Loco Works without her selling much. “It’s MGR,” says Jayamalini, as she extends her arm to reveal the tattoo. “I’m a big fan,” she blushes. The world can sometimes be cruel to her community. Jayamalini shudders at the thought of policewomen. “Once, five of our girls were taken to the police station since a lady in the compartment complained that she had lost her chain. The girls were strip-searched. The shame... we are ordinary people, but we do not steal.”
Another train pulls up; Jayamalini climbs in and sings her ladies’ coupe song. “ Akka mupadhu ruva clip iruvadhu ruva ka...paavada naada ka… ” No one pays heed; but she sings on, her voice rising over the train’s scream.
