Florigraphy?

The jasmine flowers she sells bring no fragrance into her own life
She earns a sum of Rs. 80 a day

Hand- to- mouth existence: Suguna, the flower vendor.

For the 33 year old jasmine vendor Suguna, life today is devoid of any fragrance. From morning 6 am to 6 pm barring a few hours of break, she sits on the road side near Sri Raja Ganapathy Temple in the Bazaar Street here under the scorching sun to sell the flowers in retail prices to her regular customers.

She earns a sum of Rs 80 a day on ordinary days and Rs.100 per day on the days of festival occasions when the flowers would be sold like hot cakes.

Her forearm is her scale of measurement. Each measurement of her left arm costs Rs. 5 to Rs.6. Her left hand goes up and down in swift monotonous regularity for each measurement. “I repeat this umpteen times and my hand aches during nights,” she says.

It is a day’s killing schedule. It is routine too. It starts at 5 am when she procures the flowers in bulk from wholesale agents and by the time she finishes selling her fragrant wares, it will be well past dusk.

“Sitting on the road and getting exposed to all sorts of elements is a cruel daily ordeal for me,” she says.

She buys 2 kg of jasmine and 2 kg of other varieties of flowers during ordinary days and takes an extra 4 kilogram each during the days of festivals and marriages. One kilogram of jasmine costs Rs 80 to Rs 100 on ordinary days and Rs 200 to Rs 400 during festival and marriage days, she claims. Her husband Annamalai stays back at their hut to string the jasmine buds uniformly so that it could be measured and sold easily for his wife.

Her second daughter who has been forced to drop out from school assists him at his work. It is a hand to mouth existence. But the rise in prices has hit her family of the four very hard.

“I got my elder daughter married off. We are living in a hut built on porombok land in Ponnammapet,” she says.

She says that since the day the prices had started climbing, the sale of flowers has come down. “People prefer to spend their hard earned money on essentials instead of on goods such as flowers. Today buying flowers has become an act of extravagance. Hence our earnings also have come down significantly,” she points out. The family accordingly has resorted to a delicate act of managing the meagre income for a maximum advantage. They stopped their second daughter Bharathi from school. She was studying 9th standard but allows third daughter Sharanya to continue her studies in 6th standard. They have also pruned down the purchases of milk, meat and fruits. “Instead we spent a lion’s share on rice, essentials such as oil and dal. At least this keeps the hunger away from our hut,” she says.