Sweeping it clean, from Gopalpatti to Chennai

CHENNAI: Gopalpatti village in Dindigul district shares an age-old link with Chennai in a rather unusual way. Villagers from that neighbourhood have been visiting Chennai periodically to supply the cityfolk with an important household tool  — the broomstick.Fifty five-year-old Raja from Gopalpatti village, had been living on the platforms of MKN Road, Alandur, for the past 24 years, to sell broomsticks made of dry coconut leaves. To help him, his family — wife Alagammal (50) and sons Kumaresan (27) and Ramesh (25) — would tag along. While he sold the broomsticks on the platforms of MKN Road, his sons would regularly go around the city on a bicycle to supply them to shops. Getting back just a quarter of his investment, Raja, who has barely stepped into a school, has educated his two children. Now, both his sons are qualified teachers — the elder son working as a teacher at a government school in Hosur and the younger one waiting for a posting.Over 20 families like that of Raja’s from Gopalpatti had been spending six months a year on the platforms of MKN Road to sell broomsticks, for a number of years. “There are over 100 families that come to Chennai from my place to sell broomsticks. This is the only business we have been doing for the past many years,” said Sundaraj (50).The families would purchase uncleaned brooms in bulk that would be tied together after the sticks were removed from the dry branches of coconut trees. Transported to the city in big consignments in lorries, the broomsticks would be stacked up on the platform here and would later be cleaned. “To buy and bring them to Chennai, would take us two months. To sell the entire stock after cleaning each and every stick and tying them together, would take us another two months. We would make six such trips a year. The entire family has to work to make a living,” said Papathi (28), who comes along with her husband Ravichandran, leaving her three kids back at home.Though they get only a quarter of their investment back, the money that they make is much less during the winters, as they would not get the raw materials easily. Also, back home the families get loans to invest, which they have to pay back eventually. Yet, they make a living only through this business, as it requires a lesser investment than any other trade. Besides, they have not seen any dip in their business even after electronic cleaning appliances had made it to the market. “I sell a broomstick for `10, if I’m supplying them to shops and `15 if it is purchased here. A polished broomstick, which is dried for a longer time under the sun, will cost `20. Chennai is the only place where we can sell the brooms at a higher price. People in other cities and towns won’t purchase it for this much money,” explained Raja.The families see customers from various backgrounds — be it a sweeper, a domestic help in a bungalow, an engineer who arrives in a car or a pilot — who regularly purchase at least 20 brooms in a single purchase. Though they do brisk business regularly, their only problem are the policemen who ask them to vacate the platform. “Policemen would give us `5 and ask for two broomsticks. My son was even taken to the police station for putting up shop here and I paid a fine to bring him back. Despite all these difficulties, we still continue this business, as we can’t afford to invest in anything else,” said Chitra, whose family had been selling broomsticks here for the past 27 years.