A Day in Parrys And Sowcarpet

Parry corner is a neighborhood of chennai india.Ofter referred to as parry's,It is situated near chennai port it is named after THEMES PARRY Parry's is not like any other area in the city.It is Crowded , cacophonous, narrow .... walking along NSC bose road In this narrow crowded street ,business thrives  and life goes on as usual for hundred.It is home for retail flower trade in city.The whole sale trade has shifted to Koyembedu . on the outskirts of madras, but there are still some shops on Badrian street selling different variety of flowers-malli , Kanakabaram and the like for the street corner flowers sellers to buy and tie  them together.

The busiest streets in city turns out to be the totally different street in the morning. Jain Temples around the street every individual temple has an association,  every temple has different helping option for the working class in the street this association called "Sanskar Manch" is been donating breakfast for past 8 years very day morning for the working labour class in there street.

Every day morning the family bring their children for prayers in the temples,as there is jain festival going on all the children are dressed up in the ethnic way.

To make things more interesting the community has organized the sweets for the kids, on everyday basis every family takes a turn to distribute free sweets for kids on daily basis. Beyond that the faith and believe of them towards their religion is immense as you could see the small girl paying respect to the small boy who is distributing the sweets to here . In front of the jain temple .

You might be thinking why would i repeat the same food distributing pic, But there is an difference in this. Even i thought the same when i looked at the place but when i keenly noticed there are not collecting food, there are donating food its an food collection bank center. Organized by one association for helping poor this is there collecting point every day people in there community cook from there home and give it in the food bank for the poor and needy.

If my memory serves me right,  The shops and pavement hawkers of all kinds make access difficult Nothing breaks my heart looking at this kids there  family living in the street, and the same place where there parents have street shop were they selling fruits And the whole toy world for this kids is this what you see .

History beckons at every corner in the narrow gullies of the mint area in north Madras .Even though decades old traditional homes . In this part of the city even the air wears an old look . There is an effortlessness with which everything works. Here the working class and the business class co-exist,and do so with a sense of belonging. Nowhere is this more evident that in the areas preferred mode of transport.in mint, where a majority of traditional business communities lives, the cycle rickshaw rules the road and is great leveler. jostling for space with cows and competing with scooter and sedans, the humble tricycle still finds takers.

 Everybody in Sowcarpet knows Dinesh soni. He acknowledges everyone as he arrives at his shop on 343 mint street and he calls himself as 'sowcarpet's Don' for fun and his daunting physique,rugged look and drives an massive big bike. And he has an punch dialogue that breaks the awkward silence " jab jab garmi ne mara hai, Anmol mohit chaanch  or lassi ne sawara hai

(whenever the heat kills,anmol mohit buttermilk and lassi comes to the rescue)". He was wrestler turned lassi walla .

After a point when his body gave up and his career came to end . He had to support his family.

Don't miss his lassi if you ever visit mint street specially his specialist kesar lassi .........

There are lot of whole sale shops in mint street with different business most plastic,Hardware,

lights,cutlery,crockery,aluminum and stainless steel utensils,carpets and mats.But one thing fascinated me about the plastic wholesaler who own a shop in this area called Anand kumar turns out to be the picture perfect Historian of Chennai . I was mesmerized by his collection of pictures He has  unique collection in the world and he is been collecting this pictures for almost 40 years , he is been doing this since he was 8 years old his rare picture include the picture of gandhi a day before assassination of gandhi . Fidel Castro and Che Guevara together for first time and few other important political leaders and he is the big fan for Mr MGR he has enormous pictures of him with him and to go an step ahead he has made an cut of him and has it in his store . He says he is doing this for younger generation to know what exactly happened in the history.

This place is so busy hardly people can walk here . Every small space is occupied by some kind of vendor beyond all this shops every vendor no matter what everyone is busy here selling are buying stuff no matter how big are small the shop is, this place have the buyers .

I wondered where the kungamam,manjapodi and assorted such items come from to stores in all over chennai. This row of shops on Devaraja muddle street quite close to the chennai kesaperumal temple.sells these items in bulk the shop keepers,who has  a post-graduate from madras university opted for the family business,have there own factories , there are doing business for past 3 generation as you could in the picture the generation  .

Beyond everything it is place where you would love to wonder for shopping & Eating ......