A large number of persons who are skilled in making sweets and savoury are busy now. These unorganised workers are involved in the trade for several decades and have been catering to the needs of consumers to a great extent.
Some workers who have been traditionally engaged in preparing Deepavali sweets are working overtime for the past few days to meet orders. As a large number of customers place orders, they have booked a marriage hall – Sri Sudarshan Mahal in Srirangam, for preparing sweets and savoury.
“Preparing Deepavali sweets and savoury is an art. The trade involves intensive labour and special care. All these 40 workers are specially skilled in making them,” says S. Vaidyanathan alias Ravi, proprietor of Sri Siva Vishnu Catering services.
The entire team has been divided into few batches and each batch is involved in making a specific sweet or savoury. It ensures not only speed but also quality in preparing the dishes. He has been adopting a few testing measures to ensure quality. Right proportion of ingredients such as butter, ghee or rava and proper preparation strategy make the sweets more delicious.
V. Balaraman, a labourer who has been co-ordinating the trade for the past two decades, points out he would taste the sample of sweets before delivering them to the customers. “Sweets, especially ‘Mysorepa should dissolve instantly. The sweetness should be in the right proportion, neither excessive nor short,” he says. Sweets are priced at Rs.260 and savoury at Rs. 240 a kg. A few sweets are priced higher depending on the ingredients used as in the case of cashew cake.
Suresh, another caterer at Karumandapam, says that there has been an acute scarcity of workers skilled in making the Deepavali sweets. Further, there has been a steep hike in wages of labourers. Although he used to accept orders from a large number of customers in the past, he has to be selective in accepting orders over the past couple of years.
