Occupation: Sells palm jaggery
Shall I pack one piece of karupatti (palm jaggery) for you? It is very tasty. However, business has slumped, you know. Ever since the Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes have been withdrawn, number of customers has come down. People don’t have change and so many of my regular customers haven’t turned up.
But then life has never been easy. I have been doing odd jobs ever since I became a widow. My only son was in my womb when my husband passed away. That was 44 years ago. I have studied only till class three. I used to sell coconuts and also work as a daily wage labourer. It was 14 years ago that I started selling various items here, near this arch at East Fort. I used to sell tamarind, lemon, turmeric and chillies. It was two years ago that I began selling palm jaggery.
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There are a lot of takers for the jaggery. You can use it to make many different kinds of sweets such as unniyappam, neyyappam, pazham cake, ada... It is sweeter than jaggery. It has a special flavour and taste and if you use it along with cardamom and dry fruits while preparing sweets you will just love it. People say it has medicinal properties as well. Now that the Malayalam month of Vrischikam has begun there will be a flow of Ayyappa devotees to Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple. I usually get good business during this season. They buy jaggery to use in black coffee. But because of the cash crunch I don’t know how it is going to be this year.
I get the palm jaggery from a shop in Chala. They get it from Padanthalamoodu in Kanyakumari district. The price starts from Rs. 100 per kilo; there are two varieties that cost Rs. 120 and Rs. 140 per kilo. People also stop by to purchase the chillies - udamkolli, which you use in fish curry, and kanthari and kasthuri manjal (wild turmeric) from me. These items come from Kattakkada.
I reach here from my home at Malayinkeezhu by 8 a.m. and I do business till 5.30 p.m. On Sundays, I wind up by 2.30 p.m.
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People ask me why can’t I do some other job, like selling vegetables or other edible items because not every one would buy palm jaggery. But I find this more profitable compared to those items. Some people stop by out of curiosity. Just now you saw two foreigners asking for a small piece of jaggery. They wanted to know how it tasted!
It is tough when it rains. I cover the items with a sheet and take shelter in the nearby shop. On the other hand, sitting in the hot sun is very tiring. I am 65 now and at times the difficulties are too much to handle. Now that another lady has started selling jaggery my business has come down a bit.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to give up. After all I have managed on my own all these years and took care of my son who is well settled now with his wife and two children.
(A weekly column on men and women who make Thiruvananthapuram what it is)