When we were in school and later in college, my sister Jayashree and I used to grow a garden on our second floor terrace at Ranganathan Road, Numgambakkam. It was a mind-blowing experience watching tiny shoots sprout out of seeds and grow into young plants. It was fascinating to watch flowers turn into brinjals, ladyfingers, tomatoes, ribbed gourd and more.
While it wasn’t easy lugging huge mud pots and soil up to the second floor while watering them every day; carrying buckets of aqua from the first floor, we wouldn’t have missed the experience for anything.
The closest point where we could get pots from was Periyar Road where resided a pottery colony. They still do actually. We used to take a walk of approximately 2 km one way and lug pots, probably two on each trip, back home. Auto rickshaws were not too plenty those days while cycle rickshaws not always agreed to go in our direction. More than that, Jayu and I felt we would buy an extra pot or two rather than spend on conveyance.
The full stretch of Periyar Road from near Valluvar Kottam to the end of Arcot Road used to be filled with pots of different shapes and sizes.
A few days ago, I took one more trip down nostalgia lane when I walked through Periyar Road. This was the same walk I took to Numgambakkam High Road from North Usman Road. The number of pot vendors has reduced while the variety has gone up. There were dolls and statuettes along with diyas and other decorative curios. I also found some flower pots amidst the lot and couldn’t help recall our terrace garden.
