QUEEN OF WASTEPAPER

Mangai, owns four paper mart store and a grocery shop in Adyar Zone

            She sits on the broken bed, all smiles and laughter, tells me hoe she got into the job of collecting waste, a fact that she remembers since she was ten years old, when she and her brothers used to run around and collect waste from houses for the shop owner in Tirunnelveli. Mangai, now at the age of 40, owns Chellathi Waste Paper Mart in Besant Nagar, says about how juggling the shop and her home has been quite the difficult task for her. By the time she sends off her eldest son and her younger daughter to college, it's really late for her to open the shop, even though  her children are old enough to take care of themselves. To her children comes first. Widowed at the young age of 24,says that her only ambition in life is to make her children have everything in the future without lacking anything.

   
    Apart from having four paper mart store in Adyar Zone, she has also recently opened a grocery store with the help of fund business is called Mangai Maligai Kadai (Mangai Grocery Store). This is a source of pride and comfort for her. Her day begins at 3O'clock in the morning - to go pick up fruits and vegetables from Koyambedu, rush to the grocery store in Besant Nagar to stock it up, rush back home to to send her kids off and then rush to Chellathi Waste Paper Mart where she stays till in the evening. 

  The only difficulty she faces is that the absent of a tricycle which she finds hard to get up materials from houses that are far away from the shop. After her husbands death, her two younger brothers have pushed her to achieve more, even now, when she feels sick her brother takes the work, especially with picking up waste.    
  When her son told her about how his friends were making fun of him about the profession of her, she told him to look at the people who were not as lucky as them and to know that no work should be belittled. When she goes to meet the dealers to collect payment for a load of a paper or plastic, she is met with respect and esteem. A small part of this is because of the fact that she is “Arul’s elder sister” (Arul, her brother. Bills always come addressed to her as “Arul Akka”) but is to a big part because she turns in profits that many other men paper owners don’t. All this, she says, provides her with immense pride about the profession she is in. However, in the end, she also talks about how even now she doesn’t truly feel like the owner of Chellathai Waste Paper Mart, because she is constantly under the name and protection of her brothers. Her new grocery shop, on the other hand, helps her overcome this feeling.