The Hindu Business Line : Chariots and chess men

By mid-November, the ruts in the roads of Kalpathy village, on the outskirts of Palakkad town, are miraculously patched up. Houses are whitewashed, the roadsides are cleared and Theru Mutti gets choked with traffic. Theru Mutti is the junction at which the big chariot or theru of Kalpathy Viswanathaswamy is parked. In this season, the chariot is unsheathed and varnished and the superstructure is assembled, all that activity attracting small knots of men and boys. The economic activity builds up alongside as therukadai, the street fair surrounding the festival, takes shape.

Just above the southern steps to the Kundukovil or Temple in the Pit is a small shop selling everything from soap to sharbat. About 40 years ago, its owner, L. Raghavamoothan, leased the grounds of the temple during the chariot festival. He paid the temple Rs 500 that first year, and this year he bid Rs 76,000 at auction for the privilege of using the space for a month's time before and after the festival. He sublets the space to 20 to 30 vendors, and they pay him a rent of Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 each for the month, depending on their takings.

Vendors come from all parts of Kerala and from Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Bihar. Police are on duty 24 hours a day for the three days of the festival, and many shops stay open all night.

The venerable tailor Karuppusamy has run a shop at Theru Mutti so long that the memory of woman runneth not to the contrary. He is in high demand, especially before the festival, when everyone wants new clothes. But during the three days of the festival itself, Karuppusamy makes more by renting out his shop for about Rs 3,000. He shoves his sewing machine to the back and a stall is set up in the front half, this year to sell drums. Of the two dozen shopkeepers around Theru Mutti, half rent out the space in this way, earning more than they would by working through the festival.

One day before the chariots roll, most of the stalls are up but there is room to look around. I pick up sticky bindis from Mani, who brings his fancy goods from Chennai and travels from one fair to another as far as Bangalore. I disgracefully haggle with him, but this is his first sale, so in return he gracefully kisses my grubby ten rupee note.

Saar buys vegetable seeds from a man who has come from Eliassery and we both admire his gleaming rows of machetes and knives. A vendor from Pollachi has been coming to the festival for seven years. She sells buckets and mugs from Coimbatore but what sells best are “Bombay items”— flower-painted storage containers and tea trays. Vendors who occupy the footpath ask the resident of the house behind them for permission, as a courtesy, and they may pay up to Rs 150 to the municipality.

Shailaja is selling pickles and dried vegetables prepared by Kudumbasree, a women's self-help group, from Kozhikode. She has blocks of grainy herbal soap as well, and equally grainy coconut burfi. The municipality didn't ask her for money, she said, because she represents the Kudumbasree.

A vendor whom we call the chess man sells wooden chess sets, ladles and jump ropes. He pays something directly to the priest in the house behind him, since his stall is not on temple ground or on a municipal road. The festival is the only time in the year you can find chess sets, catapults and “China cars” in the village. Or get henna put on your hands. Or buy soapstone pots, which made a comeback after more than a decade, putting an end to the annual lament that you can't get a kalchetty any more. Rajendran from Salem is selling them this year and he says it is only the women in Kerala who still use them. No fair in the town matches the range of goods you get at therukadai, and for the women it is a chance to shop as leisurely and as often as they like all month long.

Some vendors have come here for over two decades. But there are others, like a ceramics seller from Tamil Nadu pushing a handcart who says his concern is strictly business. If people aren't buying, he says, he won't wait for the chariots, he'll move on. Muhammad Ali from Bihar, who sells spirographs, comes to the festival if there is no rain, he says. Unseasonal downpours like those we had this year can wash out a vendor's profits. Goods get wet and buyers stay home, especially women wearing new saris.

The street food is a major attraction. Fat sacks of puffed rice stand at every turning. An old favourite is thirimittai or bright pink twists of sugar candy. There are many more bajji stalls than usual, draped with pale green chilis. This is the only time you can eat fresh ice cream in Kalpathy.

Public-spirited residents set up mor pandals to serve free buttermilk to the thirsty. When the chariots have been drawn and parked for the morning and you are done with shopping and have both hands free, that's the time to pick up a giant papadom sprinkled with red chili powder and float through the crowds.

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