Faces of India – 336, Street Vendor from Srirangam, Tamil Nadu

Faces of India

a series through which I intend to portray the various characters of my country whom I met during my travels. I bring back souvenirs, frozen moments from my travels, why not some memories of people I have met and interacted during the travels. Faces of India is a weekly series in my blog since MARCH 2011. See more here…

Street Vendor from Srirangam

She is a business woman, the business may be a small one but that doesn’t matter. The fact is she is independent, has a business of her own and contributes to running her family expenses.

I met her in Srirangam, a temple town of Tamil Nadu. Her business setup consists of a small table with items to be sold which mainly were betel (arcea) nuts and betel (pan) leaves. These are mainly offered for prayers at temple.

I would have passed it off as a normal thing but when I chatted up with her she said her little shop is running now for 3 generations!

My jaw dropped! 3 generations?!!! I asked disbelievingly. Her grandfather set this up first, then it passed on to her maternal uncle and then she took it over from him. Her husband too helps her sometimes but mostly she is on her own. She rakes in enough profit.

However she doesn’t have any intention of expanding further. Will any of her kids take up this? She just smiled away.

We hear of TATAs and Birlas… there are such small businesses too in India which continue generations after generations.

The above pictures were all taken in the year 2017. I made one more visit to Srirangam in 2021. While walking through the lanes I was reminded of this lady and was hoping to meet her once more. But so many lanes and by lanes I was confused where I had met her exactly. There was also that nagging thought she must have wound up her business after the lockdown in India.

Then all of a sudden I spotted her, same place, same shop, no change. I approached her with hurried steps, without any formalities I asked here, “Do you remember me?” (How stupid of me, I think now, as if I am some great personality that she will remember me.) She looked at me perplexed, then at my camera, with a smile of recognition she said, “Yes I remember you.”

I told her excitedly that I had posted her picture in my blog, how one reader had drawn her portrait, I showed it to her in my mobile. She was smiling continuously without uttering any word.

I asked her about her children. She said, “They are grown up now. They help me set up the shop in the morning and wind up in the evening.” Here is one more picture of her from my 2021 visit.

I asked her, “How did you manage during the lockdown period?” She replied, “The government gave us free rations and with our savings we managed. I could set up shop again after the lockdown. It was a short period, so we could manage.”

Painting of the Portrait

Happy to add here that an artist, Ahilan MG, inspired by this picture painted the portrait of the lady. He got to see this picture for reference and on facebook he messaged me:

Portrait painting of Street Vendor from Srirangam

Hi, I believe the pic I have referred for painting this is your click. Just wanted to thank you..

It gives great joy when my works inspires others too. I have yet another portrait that inspired other artists.

Do check: Faces of India – 306 the Bikaner Man.