Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXVII No. 15, November 16-30, 2017
Our Reader’s Write
Business without a cost
Ever heard of a business model which costs nothing except the peace of residents around? Well, there’s one on Eldam’s Road where there are a few independent houses and apartment complexes.
The hectic activity begins with a truck load of gas cylinders arriving early in the morning and parking right in front of a posh building complex. The cylinders are transferred into a couple of vans and, later, into a few tricycles which then are used to deliver them to customers. The residents wake up much before daybreak to the clanging noise of cylinders being transferred into other modes of transport. This business model reduces warehousing, transport costs, and overheads for the IOC, but it is certainly at the cost of its customers’ sleep!
Another business model at no cost is the mobile food carts catering to the delivery boys and the workers. A recent ‘outfit’ that has emerged on the right side of Eldam’s Road, occupying the footpath, is one with colourful kodam-s filled with water. Then, there’s a burly man preparing dosai-s on one side and frying puri-s almost simultaneously on a second stove. He is soon joined by his wife who arrives in an auto and unloads large buckets filled with sambar and pongal, besides smaller containers filled with chutney and potato masala. The eggs placed in the crater on the cart tell you omelettes are also on the menu. Customers trickle in right from morning and they queue up as the day progresses, thus increasing the owner’s business but polluting the place as the used plates are strewn all over, obstructing the footpath.
On the opposite side (right side) of the road, there is a man sitting behind a table under an umbrella (a business model costing nothing), selling a rice concoction to be accompanied by fried chillies and mango slices. He is proud that his loyal clientele includes those from a slightly upper strata of society. A few feet away is a kiosk which people, who prefer bread, bun and tea, frequent.
It seems to be ‘the charge of the food brigade’ on Eldam’s Road by these small-time ‘entrepreneurs’ who also act as brokers whenever an apartment happens to fall vacant!
The only saving grace is the well-known Madras Coffee House diagonally opposite (left side of the road) which offers a cup of good coffee and tea, but of course at a formidable price which perhaps is the reason for the absence of a queue and litter!
N. Meera Raghavendra Rao
17, Eldam’s Road
Chennai 600 018
