His is a voice that easily gets drowned by the din of vehicles on Race Course Road. But K Sivanandan’s regular customers do not need conversation: just a smile, a nod, and a cup of his piping hot vegetable soup.
Dressed in a white dhoti and shawl, the soft-spoken 55-year-old stands behind a 10-litre steel thermos placed on a stone bench. He sells fragrant soup with a healthy dose of black pepper through the day, sundal in the evenings; and juices in the mornings for walkers and joggers on Race Course. Although soup sellers are aplenty along this 2.25-kilometre stretch: he is the one who started the trend, way back in 1997.
“March 18, 1997,” states Sivanandan, between serving a steady stream of customers. “That was the first day I walked to this spot with a thermos full of soup to sell.” His photocopying business had run into tough times, so he decided to try his hand at health food since his father practised natural medicine. “My wife and I came up with a recipe incorporating eight varieties of vegetables and greens,” he says. It was an instant hit.
From that day on, Sivanandan has been selling from the same spot, without a break for 24 years. The COVID-19 lockdowns did slow him down, but he is now back beside his stone bench, armed with his thermos. “I arrive here with gooseberry, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, and lime and ginger juice at 6.15am from my home at Nallampalayam,” he says, adding: “In the evening, I sell from 6pm to 8.30pm.”
To make the juices, Sivanandan starts the prep work at 3am, and for the soup, at 11am. This leaves him with little time for anything else, but he thrives in the comfort of this routine. “I enjoy this. I am happy to be able to offer something healthy for people,” he says.
He started the trend way back in 1997
Over the years, he has seen plants become strapping trees in the neighbourhood; has heard of his customers’ weddings, their children’s weddings, births, and even deaths. “A few of my regular customers passed away due to the pandemic,” he says, his feeble voice dipping further.
When he started out, Sivanandan remembers being greeted by mynas and sparrows in the mornings and evenings. “I hardly hear them these days,” he says. The walkers track, he says, was busier. “Perhaps because this was the only such place then,” he adds. The one thing that stands out from the past for him, is how much people interacted with each other since there were no mobile phones in the picture. “Most walkers and joggers have earphones plugged in when they arrive on the track today,” he says. “The lack of gadgets made life more interesting back then.”
For instance, customers used to exchange notes and letters through him. “Friends would drop off envelopes with me,” he says. He remembers the various ‘gangs’ that walked together. “Each of them had a distinct character,” says Sivanandan. He fondly remembers one group, in particular. “They were all in the food business,” he says, chuckling: “They guffawed nonstop. Their laughter would announce their arrival to every walker in the vicinity.”
Sivanandan sells from a bench on Zone 1 from 6.15am onwards and later, from 6pm onwards
