The Hindu Business Line : Metal trunks still going strong despite poor demand

TIME was when everybody had one at home - the `trunk-potti' (box). It is probably still there, forgotten, lying in a loft, covered with dust and holding memories of a previous generation.

Those once ubiquitous metal trunks still survive though the demand for them has significantly shrunk as the more versatile plastic suitcases have usurped their role in storage and transport.

A handful of shops, clustered at the Nyniappan (Naicken) Street corner, continue to stock these durable boxes. One of them, Jothi Brand, which has been in the market for more than six decades, and a handful of other brands it spawned, still continue to hold their own.

Mr K. Kothandaraman, owner of Jothi Brand Steel Trunk Works, says that these boxes have carved for themselves a niche, several of them in fact, and will be around for long. Some of their users are: government departments, banks, film studios, temples, traditional households where a `potti' still figures on the list of goods a bride takes to her husband's house, and the low income families to whom such a metal box doubles up as a safe deposit locker.

The top-of-the-line boxes are made of galvanised iron sheets and others from sheets scavenged from tar drums, or any old sheet of metal.

The price, depending on the gauge of metal and box size, ranges between Rs 100 and Rs 2,000.

The Postal Department and a number of other Government departments are big buyers of such boxes for storing and transporting files and documents.

Defence service personnel buy these boxes while on transfer, when entire household goods have to be moved.

Nothing matches these boxes for their durability, asserts Mr Kothandaraman.

Film studios trust these to hold outdoor equipment, banks use them as a cash chest, temples to store the deities' ornaments and the poor to store their meagre valuables, he says.

Mr R. Somasundaram, a `trunk-potti' seller said that Chennai is a major centre for the manufacture of these boxes. They are made in Royapuram, further to the north, and in Walltax Road, he said.

A key component, the hasps that secure the boxes, come from Aligarh. A variant of the `potti,' the cash box comes from Rajkot and Dindigul.

Mr N. Ramesh, who sells `Thulasi' brand of boxes, says that recently there has been a spurt in sales following the tsunami.

NGOs have purchased them to distribute to those who have lost their belongings in the disaster last December.

That apart business goes on, he says. People do set store by these boxes.

When you need to store anything for long or transport it by sea, the containers have to be out of good quality wood, which can be expensive, or there is always the trunk `potti,' he said.

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