Melmaruvathur- 3 days Experience

The day started at 6.45AM. Rushed to Nungambakkam station to catch the Chengalpet train, had a little nap during the 1 n half hours journey and finally reached Chengalpet. The destination was not reached yet. After so many discussions, doubts and enquiries finally took a bus from Chengalpet to melmaruvathur, And from there another bus to Achurapakkam. 

The person who we were supposed to meet was waiting in an auto for us. We met that (around 20 years old) guy who was with an (around 18 years old) auto driver. We were to meet few micro- entrepreneurs and thus we sat in the auto and started our journey.

Our first stop was candle making, a woman in a very small hut (her house) was doing candle making business for past 6 months. She had a mould which cost her Rs.1500 and she could do 10 candles at a time with the help of it. It takes 10 minutes to make candles out of one mould. The wax costs Rs. 250 per KG and she gets Rs. 15 extra for each KG of candles she makes (1 KG = 51 candles). With her speed she was making an average of minimum Rs.2000 per month. 

And then the little guy who came along with us said he is the distributer of that business. When asked more he said he has bought 1 or 2 mould per lady – for 20 ladies. He distributes wax to the women when they ask for and the women come to his place to give him back the candles and get the money which belongs to them. His partner takes care of packaging which costs around Rs. 2.50 per box. On the whole his revenue is around Rs. 10,000 per week.

The next and one of the most interesting business is statue making. A family – group of 5 men who have been into statue making business for years had got loan for around 1.5laks and started statue making business last year. They make only vinayakar statues and their entire financial year is calculated between one vinayakar chathurthi to the next. Their business is of two ways- they make the statues and send them in large loads to the distributer in Thirupathi without painting. For this they get money in load basis only after Vinayakar chathurthi si over. And the distributer does not take responsibility for damaged statues. In this way, the makers are actually getting the revenue which is less than their expenditure. The second way is to paint the statue all by themselves and sell them to customers, by this way they do make a small amount of profit. They do not have any place to store the statues and thus if it rains the business is gone. They have a Rs.80,000 shed for making statues and storing the flour and moulds. EOY they made 1.5laks and with the loan of Rs.60,000 forwarded to this year. This year they have taken a loan of another 1.5laks till date and the process is still going on. If they get good contracts and if they understand that they are undervalued by the distributers then maybe after another 2 or 3 years they may see profit.

You can find many other businesses such as cow and its products, window making, cement bricks making, card holder and purse making and so on. 

25Kms of travel in the interiors of Achurapakkam which included various villages made us enjoy the beautiful green surroundings, roads where only one vehicle can go at a time and also a chance to ride the auto.

If you plan to go to any of these places make sure you see Mr.Zakeer Hussain who narrated his whole life story when we went to his shop (mobile phones) and said we are his close friends and gave us a taxi to visit the villages and also took us to his house at the end of the day and got us lunch from Saravana Bhavan. What more to say when he came along with us till Chennai and dropped us in Thanbaram in a taxi. But don’t come to a conclusion about this person before hearing the complete story. He is also an pawn broker but doesn’t know even to do addition. He is from Dubai and he mentioned about it in every single sentence. He is trying to enter politics and has made a video with background song ‘Puli urumuthu” and he walking in the whole video. He organized a function for piercing his daughter’s ears and spend 2 laks for the function and 12,000 for the video and photos (which includes the puli urumuthu video) but NEVER pierced her ears. Can you believe it? And the reason is his daughter would cry out of pain. He had his own car but always prefers a taxi – reason is his car looks old. The reason why he came with us till Chennai that day was to get chicken bucket for his daughter, son, neighbor, shop worker and everyone else whose contact he had stored in his mobile. One of the most weirdest (Thanks Shakesphere) person we had ever met in our entire lives. The worst part was when he dropped us in Thambaram he said us to contact him whenever we are in need of money and gave his mobile number (which I never bothered to save). And later that day he called me to ask if I need a chicken bucket (OMG …)

Apart from this person, the beautiful, silent temple (which came is mozhi movie) whose steps provided a good exercise and the entire village view from its back along with the cool breeze, Rs. 750 for the auto journey, the hills where murders happen are few things worth mentioning.