“How do carrots grow?” enquires a friend, convinced I would know, since I live near terrace farms for a few months every year. I don’t. What I do know, however, is that farming has been an occupation in Palani Hills for centuries, with most vegetable and fruits grown in the lower reaches. Along the streams near Vilpatti, they wash carrots by the hundreds.
Nearby, at the Sunday market in Kodaikanal, along the Poet Thyagaraja Road, vendors come to peddle their wares — from wafers and fritters to fresh produce and oddities you won’t find in a city. Where the shandu starts, Murugan arranges slingshots in a hurry. On his chest and arms are several tattoos; one, a blue lion, he won’t talk about. He comes here from Madurai with others of his tribe. “Villagers buy my slings, ₹30 apiece, to aim at crows that peck at vegetables,” he says.
Up ahead lie curious heaps of aluminium coins. As a wiry local walks up to buy one, P Raji from Batlagundu shows him how to melt it over a flame to plug holes in vessels or roofs: “If it’s a container for water, apply heat from inside; if it’s for dry goods, outside.” Raji makes ₹300 a day and spends ₹33 on a bus ticket.
Perhaps more prosperous, M Sultan, a seller of dry goods and grains, who also owns a store in Dindigul, is happy to part with an extra ₹20 to rent one of the covered shelters. But people like A Kariappan from Periyakulam, seated between mounds of ladies finger, lemons and kappa kazhangu (tapioca), can ill-afford them. Kariappan works as a coolie for the rest of the week, while Muruganandam, who arrives here in a group, hauling his load of avocados in a pick-up van, toils at a coffee estate.
Soon, the heaps of beans and carrots will disappear, as will Muruganandam and the rest of his party, only to return next Sunday.
Sujatha Shankar Kumar is a Chennai-based writer-photographer