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N. Ramakrishnan

Chennai , Oct. 5

NUTS and bolts, hinges, door handles, locks, glass, plywood, laminated sheet... You name it, we have it. That may well be the selling point of the hardware, glass and plywood merchants on Devaraja Mudali Street, Venkatachala Mudali Street and Rasappa Chetty Street.

From locally made items to imported ones, these shops stock and sell them all. If you do not find what you want in one shop, you can always try another. Better still, invariably the shop owner himself may direct you to another shop where you are likely to get it, even if he is a competitor.

And, when a number of other businesses that are worried about how inhospitable Parry's has become for them to continue doing business, the hardware, glass and plywood merchants still feel Parry's is a great place to be in - for them and for their customers too.

After all, says Mr P. Muralidhar, partner of Sri Seetharam & Co, hardware merchants, variety is a big advantage for a customer. In shops in any other part of Chennai, a customer looking for, say, a door handle, may at best get to look at a dozen varieties. Whereas, in this area the customer can choose from at least 50 varieties, he says.

As for manufacturers, the hardware business in Parry's continues to be the centre for wholesale trade and they can sell more of their goods here than in any other part of the city, where the hardware shops are not as concentrated as in Devaraja Mudali Street, Rasappa Chetty Street or Venkatachala Mudali Street, according to Mr Muralidhar.

Some of the glass, plywood and hardware merchants have been in business in the area from the early 1900s and the business is being run by the second or third generation. Most have retained the original names, while others like C. Cunniah & Co, among the oldest, now sports a new name - Niranjans, and some others have shut down.

Mr Muralidhar points out that the glass merchants were the first to establish business on Devaraja Mudali Street, after which came the hardware traders. This was because glass in those days was imported either from England or France, and being a short distance from the port, the area offered itself as an ideal location. Now one can get whatever one wants for a house - glass, laminated sheets and hardware - in one location.

According to Mr Ranga Prakash of Niranjans, dealers in glass and plywoods, despite the trade getting scattered, Devaraja Mudali Street continues to be the main market for glass and plywoods. Competition is intense, especially since glass manufacturers, including multinationals that have established plants in the country, insist on having a large number of sales outlets. Glass merchants have also changed their strategies to face competition. They engage artists who will paint whatever designs customers want on the glass, says Mr Ranga Prakash.

Adds Mr T. Subramaniam Chetty of T. Rajarathnam Chetty & Co, another established glass merchant, the trend now is for designs on glass, unlike earlier when customers preferred plain glass. With glass quality improving and varieties increasing, customers too want the latest in designs. "Shops in other parts of the city do not offer this facility. We have a handful of artists who can do the job for us," says Mr Subramaniam Chetty.

According to a hardware dealer, aluminium and steel fittings have been replaced by stainless steel and brass fittings, be it door handles or tower bolts or even staircase railings. Most of the hardware items come from the northern and western parts of the country. Door fittings come from Delhi, locks from Aligarh, brass items from Jamnagar and furniture fittings from Mumbai.

The merchants admit that the crowd in Parry's and lack of adequate facilities to park vehicles are a constraint, but they are confident that the area will continue to be the main market for glass, plywood and hardware. "We have regular customers who will come to us even if their requirement is small," says Mr Muralidhar.

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