AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 161 of 332 Women can be seen cleaning the square in front of their homes and decorating it with Kolam. They may not be greatest artist but the result of their efforts is phenomenal and brings out their artistic talents without themselves even being aware that they are blessed with such talent. On Saturday mornings and on festive days these kolams get bigger, beautiful and colourful. Women with culinary and entrepreneur skills can be seen busy setting up their Idli Vada stalls in push carts (called as Kai Endhi Bhavan). Another common sight is the elderly lady with a woolen scarf, trudging along pushing a three wheeler hand cart with milk sachets, going about distributing them from door to door. Another set of early birds are the students who set out by day break for their tuitions. They are alive and kicking even before the roosters have announced the sunrise and leave home neatly attired in their school uniforms; girls with neatly pleated hair and the boys with prominent application of Vibhuti on their forehead. I understand that some of them squeeze in tuitions on two subjects before they hit their schools and this leaves me wondering as to when do find time even for their breakfast. Chennai continues with its perennial water crisis and there are many residential areas wherein piped water supply is not available. Residents of the areas are forced to depend on community water taps and water tanks from where people collect their daily needs. Here again the women folk of Chennai are in the forefront who stand in serpentine queues from early in the morning with their multi coloured Kodams to collect water. This is a back breaking job for these women. On a lighter side many a fight breaks out between these women and these fights termed as Koza Sandai and sometimes these scenes are hilarious. These fights also serve as tutorials if one needs to update his vocabulary of abuses. A new set of early risers that I have observed over the last few years are those who dish out health drinks and they set up their stalls near the beach front, either Marina or Elliots, around the street corners and near the entrances of parks. They have a good stock of herbal drinks (Are they herbal for real?) and have a (supposedly) sound knowledge on the subject. These Juice stalls are well patronized with the list of clientele including VIP’s.