THANJAVUR : A shop that opens for a day only on Gandhi Jayanthi is proof ordinary people believe in the virtue of honesty. The shop, aptly named ‘honesty shop’ in English and ‘‘Aal Illa Kadai’ (A shop without shopkeeper) in Tamil, opened on Monday morning for Gandhi Jayanti in a portion of the bus shelter at Papanasam located on the Thanjavur-Kumbakonam main road.N Manoharan, executive officer, Papanasam town panchayat, opened the shop in the presence of Rotary Club Papanasam president S Bakrudeen Ali Ahamed and other office-bearers, including P Senthilnathan, K Senthilnathan and S Arivazhagan. During the inauguration, the office-bearers were asked to imbibe the value of honesty and truth, for which Mahatma Gandhi stood.
The shops has stationery items, including notebooks, pens and confectionery such as biscuits and most importantly, books on the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi.
Each item has a price tag and a buyer can select the item and pay by dropping the amount in a box kept in the shop.“This is the 16th year we are opening the honesty shop,” said T Saravanan, Rotary Club member and also secretary of the Papanasam Train Passengers Association. Sales were brisk on Monday morning.
Saravanan told Express every year items worth around Rs 5,000 would be displayed in the shop and the amount collected was what was expected, indicating there was no pilferage or shortchanging. Sales commenced at 10 am and went on till 6 pm.
The initiative has a precedent with the Gandhian Welfare and Development Society of Karuppur in the district. The society used to sell bananas at the bus stop without employing anyone and the price of the fruit would be deposited in a hundi placed at a site which had a portrait of Gandhi.
The banana shop ran successfully for seven years — from 2000 to 2007, said Karunamurthy, an office-bearer of the Gandhian society.