Human Flower Project
The Flower Sellers of Badrian Street
Yet another big city tries to chase flower vendors out of downtown, this time with a ban on “wholesaling.”
Measuring out marigolds in Chennai’s downtown flower district
Photo: Bijoy Ghosh for Hindu Business Line
First the wholesale flower market moved to the western outskirts of Chennai (Madras), and now the city authorities are moving to displace the retailers from their spots along Badrian Street.
N. Ramakrishnan wrote a fine piece last August for the Hindu Business Line about the vendors of Chennai’s old “poo-k-kadai,” flower market. The author interviewed several sellers and discovered that many of those who have shops out in the big new Koyambedu center prefer to keep doing business downtown.
Thangam Peter said that “Badrian Street is more easily accessible…especially for those wanting at the most, 1 kg of flowers.” It’s especially convenient for the women who make small bouquets and hair adornments to sell throughout the city. “Badrian Street offers flowers, plastic bags to carry them and fibre of the banana plant that is used to knot the flowers into garlands. So, a woman who sells flowers on a street corner in, say, Mylapore can get all that she requires” in this part of St. George Town, a precinct well connected by bus to the rest of Chennai.
Garlands hanging in Chennai’s flower district
Photo: McKay Savage
Now we learn, though, that Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority has sent in earth-moving equipment, that doubles as people-moving machinery. Authorities say they will force the flower vendors out in keeping with a law banning wholesalers from vending on the street.
But is selling a plastic bag of marigolds to a woman who makes them into hair-bobs and sells them a few blocks a way really wholesaling? We understand that the Badrian Street vendors are appealing this interpretation of the law and determined to stay put.
“I don’t just earn my living here,” 82-year-old M Viruchammal told the Times of India. “This has been my home for the last 15 years. I earn Rs 30 or Rs 40 a day. At this age where can I go and start anew?” Viruchammal said she had sold “holy basil (tulsi) stalks and Bermuda grass (Arugampul) for more than 12 years” on this street.
When will city authorities learn? Outdoor flower markets are as much a part of a vibrant downtown as public fountains, monuments to national heroes, fire stations, and city squares. Act up, all you urbanists, new and old! The same kind of displacement is happening in the United States and many other parts of the world. If we don’t push back, pretty soon cities will be nothing but Starbucks shops and ATM machines.