Eateries in the city have always had a good number of migrant workers in their kitchens. But migrant workers are cooking their way into people’s hearts even beyond hotels and restaurants.
Many a roadside eatery has the migrants lending their touch to give dishes from the north their innate flavour.
Chaat stalls on push carts, nearly all of them flaunting the same name board, whether at Karamana, Fort, Vazhuthacaud, or Technopark, are run by men from Chittor in Rajasthan. Raju sells chaat on the Poojappura-Karamana road, and Fateh Lal, aka Devraj, near a private hospital in the Fort area. They have been in the city for varying lengths of time. They had heard about Kerala from family and friends who had been here, and decided to head south in search of a better life. Though unmarried, they have families back home that are engaged in farming, an occupation with poor prospects, they say, owing to the lack of water.
Life here is better, they say, because they can earn more, though working seven days a week does not leave much time for anything else. Their day starts early around 5 a.m., to make the puris for pani puri, a time-consuming process. By the time everything is done, it is well past noon. A short break later, it is time to open up shop. Vegetables are chopped once the stall opens, depending on the demand. Not that there is much left to take back home once it is closing time. Most days, whatever sev, puris, or puffed rice they bring is exhausted, letting them pocket a decent profit.
From Tamil Nadu
R. Selvathurai, a Thenkasi native, sells nongu from his two-wheeler parked in front of the Police Training College at Thycaud. With a decade-and-half here behind him, Selvathurai greets many with easy familiarity. While the rest of his family resides back home, the few months he is here, Selvathurai lives at Kollengode. Once the rains hit the State, he packs off to Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu for some time, before heading home to Thenkasi to work as a labourer before returning to the city to coincide with the Sabarimala season.
The sugar cane juice business also has a good number of migrant workers. Amit, who hails from a village around an hour from Guwahati in Assam, sells sugar cane juice on the Poojapppura-Karamana road. Not too far away, at the mouth of the Jagathy-Poojappura road, is Sherif, from Kolkata. Amit lives at Kaniyapuram with 16 others, all of them from Assam. He earns around ₹500 day, though the sugar cane press is not owned by him. Having been here six years, Sherif speaks Malayalam fluently.
Unlike Amit though, he owns his sugar cane press, and saves enough for his family, which includes a pregnant wife, and to send money home. “Here, I can save some money. Back home, the salary is less, and it just gets spent.”
Amit, who has studied till Class 3, says it is not impossible to make ends meet in Assam, but there is more money to be made here. “I send ₹10,000-12,000 home each month.”
