An agricultural labourer has resorted to stitching and selling fans made of palm leaves to make a living amid the lockdown. The man, who worked on agricultural fields in Manikandam block now cycles from his home to the city to sell these fans.
S. Palaniswamy leaves from home at 6 a.m. each day to reach Tiruchi city by 8 a.m. “I prefer riding my bicycle early in the morning as otherwise the scorching sun tends to wear me out,” he says. Once in the city, he travels along the Bharathidasan Salai and around the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital where people usually purchase his fans.
The fans are sold at ₹30 a pair, Mr. Palaniswamy says. The palm leaves are collected from the farms where he used to be employed.
“The landlords are kind enough and allow me to pluck the leaves as they are unable to employ me now, he says.
“I return home by noon after selling them and go to pluck the leaves before sunset. There are insects and snakes crawling everywhere, I even get bitten sometimes but I return with enough leaves for at least 10 fans a day,” he says.
Once at home, Mr. Palaniswamy and his wife first remove the middle vein from the leaves and other hard fibres from the edges before they fold and stitch them to a thick stalk which would make the fan’s handle.
Each fan takes about half an hour to make, he says. Some days his wife stitches the fans while he leaves to sell some in the morning.
Mr. Palaniswamy says that he had a tumour in the right cheek which had to be surgically removed last year. “I could not go to work for at least four months following an operation and my children - two boys who are in class 5 and 8 suffered the most,” he says.
They did odd jobs to earn some money for the family and still continued to go to school, he said and added that he could not bear to watch it, he says. “When my employer asked us not to go to work until the lockdown ended, I knew I had to do something this time. I can go to sleep hungry but my sons do not deserve to,” he said.