known city, unknown places

Sniff and tell : Over 20 tonnes of seafood are handled by over 3,000 people at this market every day. Asha S. Menon fishes around for details of the trade.

I am in the way. Of thermocol boxes or men dragging boxes of fish, of cups of tea or women with cane baskets… I have no fish to sell or buy, but am at Chintadripet Fish Market during one its busiest hours (5 a.m.). I hang around, hoping to unde rstand its working between shouts and being pushed about.

My first stop is a man who has balanced his plastic, deep tray of fish on many boxes. After a few full-throated cries, the man disgorges himself near his makeshift stall and into the muddy water pools on its floor, and in a few minutes somebody upsets his tray. After a few shouts, the prawns that were spilt in the muddy water on the floor are restored to the tray — back in business.

Hygiene is the first victim in cramped spaces, and therefore KMS Dharmalingam, head of the fish vendors’ association that has rented out this space, has requested the government to give them more space — a centrally located two-acre plot instead of the four and the half grounds they currently occupy. “Three to four thousand people do business here on weekdays, and five to six thousand on weekends,” he claims. A figure that is not too hard to believe when you have experienced the crowd. Around 20 to 25 tonnes of sea food, one-fourth of the city’s consumption, is bought and sold here, says Dharmalingam.

A hundred varieties

The day at the 200-year-old (if you believe Dharmalingam) market starts with the arrival of thermocol boxes that carry a hundred varieties of fish including pomfret, shark, koduva, sankara, vanjaram and kezhanga. They are brought, by rail and road, from different parts of the country — Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka, Goa, Mumbai, Gujarat and Kolkata (and the rest of Tamil Nadu, when the 45-day ban is not on). Some boxes are packed and boarded on the train, while some are brought by people like Saradha.

Forty-year-old Saradha lives on the rails. She takes a late night train from Andhra Pradesh and lands in Chennai in the early morn. After her day’s business, she takes a noon train back to Andhra Pradesh, and returns by the late train. She gets paid a part of what she sells.

The market starts filling in at around 6 a.m., and retailers, mostly women, push their way through the crowd. While the wholesalers (who do business from 4 a.m. to 9.30 a.m.) stay perched on raised platforms keeping accounts, their assistants trade. Everyone is exchanging notes on the rates at which the fish is being sold, and everyone is in a hurry to get the best price. I am carried by the crowd to stalls where people are arguing over prices. They shout and sometimes abuse one another over prices, but together crack into laughter at a joke. Fish that are presumably dead, jump back into life and out of the baskets in pathetic attempts to escape. One tries to wriggle away, through the muddy waters on the floor, but its escape is aborted by a fish vendor who drops it back into a plastic sack.

During the busy trading, I spot tea cups that magically appear in hands. I look around to find the source, and spot Kannan with a thermos flask. While he supplies within the market, Ajees does outside. Once the buy is made, the vendors step out into the road and have a cup at Ajees’ bicycle teashop before dispersing to different corners of the city.

Some fish vendors like the elderly Nessapattu stay back and wait outside the shed. A few retailers and members of the association, including her, are allowed to trade in the shed after the wholesale trading. I ask her what the association does for her, and she replies, “Provide fish and space, and little else.”

During her wait, Nesapattu tries vending her shrimp placed on a thermocol sheet. She sprinkles water on them every now and then, to ward away the flies that gather. This corner she shares with four others is crowded with boxes, decaying jute sacks and plastic pots that hold water. Selvam too waits his turn at the corner. He is selling vavval fish to women who will then sell it to export companies. He says he was selling the fish for Rs. 50, when the previous day it was priced at Rs . 150.

After a cup at Ajees’, I step to the left of the market, where ancillary businesses like cutting and cleaning take place. Kumaran has been doing the job for 10 years now and get paid Rs. 5 per kg by hotels and Rs. 10 per kg by homemakers. He hopes to retail in fish someday, and would like his school-going children to work elsewhere. Around 30 people work in this part of the market; like the retailers, each of them has to pay a rent to the association. To rent space, you need to be a member of the association, and “to be a member, five to six generations of your family should be in this line of business,” says Laxmi, another fish cutter.

I return to the main shed at 10.30 a.m. to see the market winding up. Boxes and sacks are making their way out, and retail traders sweep and swab the shed clean. They set up shop on the platforms and customers start trickling in. The retail trading shuts shop at 2 p.m. and reopens at 6 p.m. for an hour.

After its throbbing morning hours, the market’s afternoons and evenings seem like a stretch and a yawn before it’s time for bed.

credits: thanks to Metro Plus, The Hindu

Story: Asha Menon

Photos: K. V. Srinivasan