From roasted peanuts to fried corn, mangoes and cucumber fruit, the city has got everything in tune with the seasons. But the people who make a living by selling the fruits struggle a lot.
For the past 10 years, Angumani, who sells cucumber on roadside near the Head Post Office on Pudukotai Road. Her customers are mostly office goers and tourists who buy the fruits to escape the summer heat.
Every morning at 5 a.m., Angumani, who lives at Pirattiyur, purchases the cucumber from a wholesale dealer and loads her basket with the fruits. Along with her fellow vendors, she wraps these fruits in a dry leaf to keep them safe from heat.
With no shade or umbrella but just a small towel covering the head in this summer, which has the power to dehydrate any living being, these women wait for customers to sell the fruits. With three children to bring up and a non-working husband, it has been a struggle for Angumani to carry the load of the family. “My three children have been the only hope to live for and seeing them established gives me encouragement to work harder. They are working and supportive to the family. My eldest son is working in bank and is married,” says Angumani.
Rani, 38, accompanies Angumani in the fruit selling business for the past one year. She was working in a cucumber fruit farmland for the past 25 years and recently started selling fruits. Her son, Harish, studying in standard VIII in Pirattiyur government school, accompanies her mother to sell the fruits. “It is summer vacation in school and I don’t like to be alone at home. I come here and help my mother in the sale,” says Harish with an umbrella, pointing to Rani (his mother) who takes rest in shade across the road.
About 30 to 40 customers usually drop in to buy the cucumber everyday. There is stiff competition in every trade and selling cucumber is no exception. “We all face the same heat as the other. Some of us manage to finish our sale early. But we do help each other like sisters when someone has a bad day,” says Pushpa, another vendor.
