From stationery to food, pottikadais were known to stock everything but it’s rare to find these smallscale neighbourhood shops.Our reporter goes around the city to find a few pottikadais and learns that some shopkeepers have made efforts to evolve with time.
CHENNAI:Pencils, pens, erasers, candies, toothbrush… name it and you can find them at these pottikadais. Remember those days (before Internet) when you would rush to schools to write your exams and stopped at this small shop to fill your fountain pens with ink for just `2? Today, these shops are a rarity. Are the wholesale markets and departmental stores to blame? City Express explores…
We take a walk along NSC Bose Road, Broadway, to find such shops, and to our surprise, we find a few petty-shop owners, who are still doing robust business. It is 30 years since Anil Kumar set up his small nameless kadai at Flower Bazaar. According to him, the only thing that hasn’t changed is the shop! Even today it doesn’t have a name board. “Earlier, we were the only shop in the market. Today, stationery shops have taken over entirely, and we have taken a backseat,” he says, pointing at his racks that are partially filled with cigarettes and few soap cakes.
A 20-something Mohammed Rafi has been in this business for eight years. “When I set up this shop, sales were good, but today I sell things that are in demand like candies, cigarettes and paakku (betel nut). I am forced to continue this, because I do not have funds to start something new from scratch,” he rues.
Meanwhile, we come across R Ramdass who owns a pottikadai that sells only table cloth, and washing machine covers. “I changed my pottikadai business 15 years ago because this is comparatively profitable than the others. I buy these products at wholesale rates and sell it at a retail rate. But this also doesn’t fetch much profit,” he says.
Over the years, people started going to these pottikadais only for mobile recharge. Even that has now decreased. “We have seen good days…but when the business began to spiral downwards, I started the recharge service. I had good business initially but recently, apps like Freecharge, PayTM and other internet services have taken over,” rues Anil.
While these shop owners are finding a way to sustain their businesses, CE identifies a few people in the city who draw a nostalgic connect to these pottikadais. It was 15 years ago, when Raghavi was called as ‘Pottikadai’ by her classmates, “It was because all the stationery I carried to school,” she laughs. “I bought them all from a shop adjacent to my house…my classmates knew about that and the name stuck!”
Sharada, on the other hand, associates the word ‘pottikadai’ to tea cakes and buns. She calls it her comfort place and her identity. “It was all about going to the shop from school, opening the metal lids and taking what we like, without the fear of being judged. The owner knew kids like me. It made us feel safe…and at home,” she smiles.
And how can we forget those who had their first drag of the cigarette from these pottikadais. “Forty years ago, when I began smoking, I wanted a place where I wouldn’t be spotted. I found one such place on Nungambakkam High Road, behind a pottikadai. There was a small room where we would smoke without the fear of getting caught,” smiles Venkatesh.
We ask Gunipoornima what pottikadais meant to her, and she couldn’t stop making a list. “Hanging bananas, butter biscuits in glass jars, cigarettes and betel leave… Pottikadais take me back to my childhood. We used to call the shop owner ‘annachi’ and recently, I met an old friend who used to come to purchase some betel leaves,” she says.
Many customers also made special bonds with the shopkeepers. Says 27-year-old Nithin, “I was a regular to his shop to buy things like bambaram (top) and rubber balls. Looking at me play cricket with those rubber balls, he told me his son plays well too. I used to play with his son and every time he got out, I would get a free rubber ball,” he grins. “Pottikadais were also a party spot for my friends and me.”